Genetic Engineering and Environmental Racism

As drought plagued southern Africa in the summer of 2002, biotech companies lost no time in exploiting hunger for profit. The US offered to "help" by donating food from GMO (genetically modified organism) crops. But African scientists knew there was a catch. They had seen demonstrations showing that Europe wanted no part of the technology. They knew that GMOs were associated with health and environmental dangers. Worst of all, the Percy Schmeiser case suggested that if GMO seed was planted in Africa, the next generation of GMO plants could result in farmers owing "technology fees" to biomaster Monsanto.

Countries throughout Africa denounced the food-for-control ploy of the US. US spokespersons brayed that African leaders were letting their people starve. After massive US bullying, most African countries agreed to accept GM corn if it was milled (ground so that seeds could not be planted). Zambia refused GM food of any kind. The conflict scored a tremendous moral victory in exposing the cynical complicity of the US government in fronting for corporate greed.

Opposition to GMOs coheres in 1998

For decades, biologists have known that a gene can be removed from a cell, modified, and reinserted into the same cell or a different cell from another species or even the other kingdom (plant and animal). As the technology developed rapidly, during the 1980s and 1990s, scientists warned that the process was inherently risky. Its critics spelled out in detail the range of health, environmental and social problems that genetic "engineering" could bring.

In 1998, many of those critics came together for "The First Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation: Genetic Engineering." The Gathering was in St. Louis, the home town of Monsanto. Monsanto is the world's most aggressive proponent of GMOs. The company's spokespeople claim that genetic engineering is necessary to feed the world's growing population.

At the 1998 Gathering, researchers explained how shooting a gene into an inexact location in a foreign species produces unpredictable results. Farm advocates spoke of how genetic engineering produces lower yield, not the higher yield promised by Monsanto. Health experts warned that genenetic engineering is used to allow greater quantities of herbicides, which affects the health of farm workers. Genetically engineered foods produce toxic reactions as well as food allergies, which are most serious in children.

Those at the event learned how genes can escape from domestic crops to their wild relatives, giving weeds immunity to herbicides. Genetically engineered microorganisms can unpredictably kill crops and genetically engineered plants can harm wildlife.

The Gathering attracted many newcomers to movement politics who were shocked to hear from Jane Akre and Steve Wilson how Fox News in Florida bent to pressure from Monsanto, suppressed their story on rBGH milk and ultimately dismissed the reporters.

Vandana Shiva pulled the diverse knowledge together, explaining the way genetic engineering is used by corporations to monopolize the seed supply and raise the cost of farming so that agribusiness can consolidate its control worldwide.

Increasing danger, exploding opposition

Since the 1998 Gathering, threats from the biotech industry have increased profoundly while opposition to it has exploded. The international movement for labeling genetically engineered food gained tremendous world-wide support as it exposed corporations who were terrified that telling consumers that their food was genetically engineered would be putting a skull and crossbones on it. Opponents have pulled up so many test fields of GMO crops that companies and governments have taken to hiding their locations.

Biotech proponents have frenetically sought to silence criticism as they shriek that corporate-funded research is the only road to scientific truth. When he began his investigations, Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland was neither for nor against genetic engineering. But when results of his own studies showed that rats fed genetically engineered potatoes had damaged internal organs, he felt compelled in 1998 to warn the public. He was involuntarily retired from his position and condemned in a report by the British Royal Society.