Dr. Ann Clark contends that there are five areas of major risks in using biotechnology and genetic engineering (GE). Her discussion touched on four of them before landing solidly on the fifth. Following are highlights from her presentation. (The complete text can be found on Clark's internet home page at http://www.oac.uoguelph.ca/www/CRCS/faculty/eac.htm.)
1. Unwillingness to label
Except for Novartis, biotech companies are notoriously unwilling to consider labeling their products to allow the consumer to choose whether or not to use genetically modified foods.
During the question period at the end of the discussion, Elizabeth Thomas, a small organic producer from Grandora, SK asked McCann, "Why are you so afraid of labeling?"
After meandering through completely unrelated territory (neutraceuticals), McCann asked, "What would you like to have on the label?"
Thomas replied "A logo like the one on irradiated food."
McCann then suggested that there could be an "alert" symbol as there is for Nutrasweet. "But," he asked, "what does that tell the consumer?"
Hmmmm. We wonder.
2. Concentration of power
Agricultural chemical companies are vertically integrating control over agricultural inputs. They are using the proceeds of their chemical sales to buy up seed companies.
Holden's Foundations Seed is the source of about 35% of inbred corn lines. It is from these lines that all North American corn hybrids are produced. Holden's is now wholly owned by Monsanto, who paid one billion dollars for it.
Clark asked "In the future, where will you go to buy seed that's not genetically engineered? The industry is becoming increasingly dominated by these biotech companies."
Responsibility and accountability
Clark suggested that biotech firms must be responsible and accountable to users of their products and to society as a whole. "Their liability to farmers is clear," stated Clark, "but who will pay when it comes to paying for the costs of escapes; for damage to soil cycling or to the food web? That is much less clear."
Farmers are already embroiled in legal actions against owners of transgenic technologies. In Mississippi, up to 25% of cotton producers who used transgenics are arbitrating to recover millions of dollars of lost income from 40% yield losses last year. "The problem of inconsistent activity [of transgenics] is recognized elsewhere in the industry," Clark said. "Pioneer declined to introduce Round-up Ready genes into its corn lines because of it."
Clark believes that biotechnologies have been brought on much too fast. She quoted a colleague who recently published a paper on the ethics of biotechnology:
"The hasty use of modern technologies, such as those developed through genetic engineering indicates a lack of respect for our fellow human beings. To introduce these substances prior to thorough analyses of the consequences for our societies and our environment is to impose on many people a risk of great harm of possible damage to health, to environments or to social systems. The people on whom these risks are imposed are normally unaware of the technologies which have generated the risks, consequently they do not accept the risks voluntarily."
"In a nutshell," she said, "that's what we are doing. That's what you as producers are being asked to accept a role in. ... There is so much evidence of risk that it's incomprehensible to me that we are allowing this to go forward."
4. Diversion of academic resources and producer ingenuity from other solutions
According to Clark, society has been sold a bill of goods. Genetics is portrayed as the root of all problems in agriculture, and thus the best and perhaps only solution is biotechnology, specifically genetic engineering. In large part, this is because genetics is proprietary in nature and therefore generates profit, suggests Clark.
The real root of the problem in agriculture, contends Clark, is mismanagement of crops and rotations. "We grow large areas of a few genetically narrow hybrids and cultivars in all species. Livestock and crop production have become polarized." Clark goes on to suggest that we could learn a lot from the holistic problem-solving techniques used by organic farmers.
Biotechnology is not creating jobs, as is sometimes implied by its supporters. Production agriculture departments in all of North America are increasingly dominated by genetic engineering. None of these are new positions, according to Clark. Instead, traditional specialties in agronomy, plant breeding and soil science are being displaced. In reality, there are fewer people and less funding to find solutions other than genetic engineering to current production issues.
Clark talked about how genetic engineering solved a corn root worm problem. A Bt corn hybrid resistant to the pest was created. But, corn root worm is not a problem in well-managed cropping systems when reasonable rotations are used and manure is incorporated. It only becomes a problem in very simple rotations or continuous corn. In effect, the biotech industry created an expensive solution to a non-problem. Clark raises her eyebrows. "Genetic engineering just covers up the problem until alternate technologies are entirely lost."
5. Ecological implications
Clark's overview of potential ecological implications arising from genetic engineering (GE) was useful. She prefaced her remarks with the observation that biotech has been sold to the public based on a set of assumptions that have been presented as fact, but which, in reality, have never been documented. Some of those assumptions are now being proven false.
The industry has harnessed natural gene transfer mechanisms -- plasmids or viruses -- to create transgenic organisms. And therein lies the danger. Just as we can insert genetic material into an organism, that material can de-insert itself, and via plasmids and viruses, hitch a ride to a neighbouring organism.
A key selling point of the biotech industry's sales pitch has been its assertion that transgenes cannot spread from the host into other organisms. This assertion, really just an assumption, is now known to be false. This should be no surprise. Genetic transfer is natural and should be expected. Genes can move easily between sexually compatible plants, like canola and mustard. And it has been documented. Pollen from transgenic canola has fertilized wild mustard up to 2.5 km away.
Transgenes also move horizontally between unrelated organisms; from plants to fungus or from fungus to bacteria. To track the transfer of desired genes, scientists attach one of several well-known antibiotic resistance genes. When that 'marker' gene shows up in the transgenic organism, scientists are assured that the genetic transfer has been successful. Those same antibiotic resistant marker genes have been found in the fungus that degrades transgenic plant residue, whether the plant was grown there or just the residue added to the soil. If the marker gene moves, so to does the associated gene. And if it moves from the plant to fungus, will it eventually move from fungus to other organisms?
Clark also pointed out that it is much easier to transfer a package containing one or two genes, as in GE organisms, that to transfer multiple genes associated with the transfer of quantitative traits in traditional plant breeding. An easily transferred single gene would be easily integrated into undesirable and weedy species. There is growing evidence in favour of this mechanism, particularly in Nebraska.
GE must consider diverse issues
Agricultural GE looks for ways to control pests. "This can be a very risky business"' Clark contends, "because we can create problems just by unbalancing the system. ... In California, 24 out of 25 top pests were originally secondary components of the insect community. They weren't considered to be pests. They became pests when biocides knocked out the primary pests, and also whacked the primary predators and all the parasites and pathogens and control agents that contained them. The same thing could happen with GE."
Clark spoke about ripple effects that GE might have on the food web. For instance, ladybugs eat aphids, which do a lot of damage on potatoes. The biotech industry created transgenic potatoes that make a natural poison against aphids. However, some aphids survive. When ladybugs eat these survivors, the poison also affects them. They live half as long and produce 30% fewer eggs during their lifetime. What does this mean for the world beyond the edge of the potato field?
Our experience with exotic imports should alert us to potential problems with GE organisms. Exotic invaders are accidental imports. About 15% of these exotics become pests, even though they might not have been pests in their place of origin. Spruce budworm and purple loosestrife are two costly exotic invaders in Canada. Here, they have no natural predators to keep them under control. Instead, Canadian taxpayers foot the bills for their control. Who benefits?
No easy answers
There are no easy answers in the debate around biotech and GE. Much of the difficulty arises from gaps between the science of GE and other cross-cutting issues: economics, politics, and philosophy. There is a gap in objectivity, if not in fact then in appearance. Science seems too closely married to corporate interests. Scientists seem mere wage labourers for giant multinational companies.
There are gaps between scientists, corporations and political structures that muddy the lines of public responsibility and accountability. The public good is being commodified and privatized, often to the public's disbenefit. National sovereignty erodes, as the economic power of corporations swells. Industry-friendly trade agreements create rules that favor those same corporations.
Now what?
The biotech industry is selling us genetically engineered products developed by technical processes that are proprietary, and therefore top-secret. We see only the end product. If it is approved for sale in Canada, then the regulatory system has been provided with information that meets predetermined criteria. That information is provided by the scientists who in turn receive pancreases from the companies who own both the product and the processes by which it is developed.
So what's the problem? The biotech industry has followed government regulations. The government has done its job in setting out criteria that defend public safety. And we all know that science, regardless of who pays the bills, is objective, and by extension, so are scientists. Should we be so suspicious? If we are suspicious, why are we? What, or who, don't we believe?
A good place to begin is by educating yourself as broadly as possible. Look for information from both sides of the debate. Check your local library for books on science, biotechnology or genetic engineering. Probably the best primer is '"The Citizen's Guide to Biotechnology," published by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (call 416-923-3529). AgWest Biotech Inc. (call 306-975-1939) publishes several booklets covering various aspects of biotechnology. Both sources are plainly written, and are on opposite sides of the spectrum, so they are good places to start.
The Internet is a rich source of information. Just type in biotechnology or genetic engineering and you'll be busy for hours. For those who are interested in how farmers in other places in the world view biotech and GE, try the home page of the "Third World Network" based in Penang, Malaysia. Their home page can be found at www.twnside.org.sg.
For those who are concerned with one or more aspects of the biotechnology debate, there are several actions you can take;
"We need to stop predicating our vision of the future on the assumption that we can contain GE organisms. Explicitly acknowledge that this stuff is going to get out so that we think about when it does get it. It is not an "IF" question, but a "WHEN" question, and then a "THEN WHAT? We have to concentrate on these issues."
- Dr. Ann Clark, speaking at the NFU National Convention
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