Don't be fooled by the 'Biotech Myth'
Grand Forks Herald
Published Monday, November 24, 2008
http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=94342&section=Opinion
By Kristine Mattis


GRAND FORKS — The new presidential administration would do well to ignore the
not-very-impartial advice of Art Brandli (“Obama must lead on biotech,” Page
A4, Nov. 15).
Biotechnology may have produced exponential economic growth for large
agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and Dow, but it has
done little to help people.
There exists a world food crisis, but as Francis Moore Lappe and others have
noted, we do not have a world food shortage. We have a problem of growers forced
to produce monocultures for export while not being able to feed themselves and
their own communities.
We have enormous distribution problems and tremendous waste. The United Nations
recently estimated that at least 50 percent of food produced ends up as garbage,
while billions of people around the world go hungry.
A three-year study by the University of Kansas showed that genetically modified
soybeans produce 10 percent less yield than their non-GM counterparts. So, even
if there were shortages, biotechnology is not the solution.
Moreover, the safety claims of biotechnology are dubious at best. GM foods do
not undergo comprehensive health studies before being released to the market.
Dr. Arpad Pusztai of the United Kingdom conducted the world’s most thorough
research on the health effects of GM foods. He found evidence of autoimmune
problems, allergic reactions, underdeveloped organ growth and cancer resulting
from the ingestion of genetically modified food.
Is it any wonder that farm animals and wildlife feeding on agricultural crops
avoid GM crops at all costs?
Furthermore, genetic modification of crops has the potential to alter the genes
of, and consequently the health of, entire ecosystems. Pollen from GM plants can
travel far and wide, creating a “genetic pollution.” GM crops also create a
seed dependence for farmers, which often ruins their prosperity and their lives.
More than half a million farmers in India have committed suicide as a result of
losing their livelihoods to the endless cycle of dependence on seeds and
chemicals that biotechnology produces.
Finally, the unknown and potentially irreversible consequences of such
technology are innumerable. GM crops are treated with extreme caution in
Europe.. Starving nations on the African continent even have banned the import
of GM food aid from America.
Another biotech example, recombinant bovine growth hormone, was introduced by
Monsanto in 1994 to increase milk production in cows, even though America was
already producing far too much milk. Monsanto hoped increased milk production
would drive down milk prices, thereby putting small dairy farms out of business
while huge agribusiness corporations could absorb the costs and take over the
market.
But the real results of rBGH use were not just financial. It produced severe
impairment and infection in dairy cows. That infection and the antibiotics used
to treat it are passed down to the milk consumer. Other health effects from
ingesting dairy products made from rBGH: higher risk of colon, prostate and
breast cancers, possible role in pediatric bone cancer and implication in lung
cancer.
No wonder countries such as Canada, New Zealand and all of the European Union
have long ago banned rBGH from even being introduced.
President-elect Obama should be curtailing the use of biotechnology and
implementing the precautionary principle within our current regulations. The
rest of the Western world is light years ahead in consumer protection and the
use of sustainable agriculture, while the American government remains under the
influence of agribusiness giants who are on a mission to control the entire
world’s food supply to the peril of us all.
 
Mattis is a graduate student in Earth System Science and Policy at UND.




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