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In the last four articles of this series
we have had a brief peek at concerns with 'Big Food'/'junk
food' and the potential legal battles that seem to be brewing.
Much of the real in fighting will probably become very bitter
and the 'Big Food', etc, producers will try, of course, to
keep as much of it as possible out of the press. There will
be intense lobbying behind the scenes and undoubtedly many
'deals' will be attempted. That is the way of the 'modern'
world.
There looks set to be similar intense lobbying
and 'possible deals' trying to be made in another aspect of
the food world that concerns us all, the famous so-called
GM Foods, genetically modified foods. These GM foods have
been called 'Frankenstein foods' by some of their opponents,
a labelling that may be a little bit strong for a type of
project that theoretically started out with the best of intentions,
to save the world from hunger. The project seems, however,
to have possibly been hijacked on the way from theory to practice.
Money, greed, business and power seem to have turned - like
so many things - an idea that was beneficial into a situation
of potential concern and confrontation. It boils down to the
ancient struggle between ethics and money. Sometimes these
contrasts can be seen much more clearly from outside of the
'modern' world, by cultures that are philosophical and ancient
and can analyze our own 'modern' foibles with an unfogged
mind. I will give an example from Vanuatu, in the southwest
Pacific. Nearly 20 years ago I was having a long series of
discussions with an old friend, a chief from the island of
Ambrym (an island renowned for sorcerers), about the problems
of violence in the 'white man's world', a distant, isolated,
sometimes feared world. "I have heard there is a council
called the United Nations which groups together the big islands
of the world, is this true?", my friend asked. "Yes",
I replied. "I have heard that inside this council there
is another council called the Security Council that looks
after the peace of the world, is this true?", he said.
"Yes", I replied. “I have heard that America,
England, France and Russia are the most important members
of this peace council, is this true?" "Yes",
I replied. "I have also heard that America, England,
France and Russia are also the countries that make the most
rifles and fighting tools and they sell them to the other
counties in the United Nations, is this true?" "Yes",
I replied. "How can this be? If we set up a council of
high men to control and stop the making of bad magic stones
(there are good ones) by bad sorcerers (there are good ones),
we do not put those men making the stones in the council".
No reply.
GM foods may be a little bit like that.
Good in theory, but when one looks at the alleged track record
of some of the giant corporations involved in the selling
of the prime GM material (seeds, sprays, etc), then it is
only natural that one can become a bit wary. I am making no
comparisons here whatever, only posing a theoretical query:
what if Coca-Cola was produced, sold and distributed by the
Mafia? Would you then be slightly cautious of it even if you
liked it? Wouldn't you begin to wonder? In spite of all the
pro-GM publicity on how safe such types of food are for humans,
there are still doubts. It is obvious that 'GM' foods have
not been around long enough for anyone to be absolutely certain
that such food will cause no long-term eventual problems.
Be that as it may, and in spite of great pressure from US
'interests', the European parliament in Strasbourg voted on
3rd July to legislate for the most stringent GM food labelling
and food sourcing rules that now exist anywhere. This vote
was enacted in spite of 'massive lobbying from US biotechnology
companies', and was effectively a major slap - more of a punch,
really - in the face for them. This was only voted through
by a narrow majority. If the vote stands up, all foods in
Europe derived from GM crops, at least those containing more
than 0.5% of GM material, must be so labelled. European consumer
groups estimate that a minimum of 30,000 food products will
now need to be labelled as containing GM material - mostly
derived from GM Soya or maize - including 'non-food' items
such as breads, cakes, chocolates, crisps and sweets. There
is no provision, though, for enacting rules for a 'GM - free'
label for foods that either do not contain GM material or
contain less than the 0.5%. This latter omission poses a problem
for those wishing to produce and sell organic food. However,
'the nature of the beast' is such that already - or in the
very near future, there may almost be no easily available
food products that do not contain some trace of GM material.
More below as to the reason why.
Europe is not out of the woods yet: this
decision is not yet law and it may be that the extremely narrow
majorities that managed to push this vote through in Strasbourg
may be even further reduced, or disappear, in the future steps
needed to pass the legislation. The European parliament must
vote on the issue once again before the end of 2002 and then
confer with member states. One can imagine that the big biotechnology
companies will not take this lying down and that the knives
will be out. The 3rd July vote also raises the possibility
of a trade war with the US, which claims that such proposals
could seriously affect approximately $5 billion worth of US
exports annually to Europe. It is likely that the US will
try and block such legislation by resorting to the WTO (World
Trade Organization) under the ruse that this is effectively
a discrimination against American products amounting to an
illegal trade restriction. We have already had a chance to
delve into the pros and cons of the WTO in an earlier article.
But how is it that GM crops have actually
gotten this far when it seems that the public outcry against
them, even in the US, had seemingly reached such a state two
years ago that it looked as if the whole concept might have
been doomed to oblivion? Well, we underestimate the power
of money and the money of power. Millennia ago, the great
Sophocles said:
"Money, gentlemen, money! The virus
That infects mankind with every sickness
We have a name for, no greater scourge
Than that! Money it is that pounds
Great cities to piles of rubble, turns people
By the millions into homeless refugees,
Takes homeless citizens and corrupts them
Into doing things they would be ashamed to think of
Before the fee was mentioned…."
And things are no different today, they
are even worse. The relatively recent shocking news (for some)
about corporate fraud in the US should be opening the public's
eyes as to how the system really works. The recent cases of
the collapses of Enron, Worldcom and those others that are
in the pipeline are just an indication of the depths to which
big business has sunk - and this is nothing new, this sort
of fraud has been going on for nearly 15 years and involves
not only the big companies, but also auditors, banks, stock
markets and so on. It is all interlinked, and people have
a right to be disgusted with the system. The only surprise
is that it has taken so long to come to light. The 'modern'
world, so adept at criticizing nations in the 'Developing'
world for corruption, should be hanging its head in shame:
the sums involved in modern 'corporate fraud' dwarf the paltry
hoardings of petty dictators. And is there any saving grace
because those involved are from the 'modern' world? No, and
it gets worse: of the top 100 largest economies in the world,
51 are business corporations, only 49 are nations. Of the
top 200 business corporations in the world, 82 are from the
US. Of these 82 corporations, 44 did not pay the full standard
35% US federal tax rate during the period 1996-1998, and seven
of these 'actually paid less than zero in federal income taxes
in 1998 (because of rebates)'. These include household names
- PepsiCo, Chevron, Texaco, McKesson, Enron, Worldcom and
General Motors. There are, of course, similar corporations
in the UK and Europe; it is just that US companies seem (so
far) not so adept at keeping secrets. 'Creative accounting'
can do wonders!
So how did the big biotech corporations
react when, a couple of years ago, it looked as if the future
of GM products was possibly due to be curtailed? A year ago,
35 countries had, or were developing, compulsory GM labelling
laws. It looked then as if the vast US agricultural export
industry would have to bow to public pressure and keep GM
seeds well away from 'pure' crops. What happened? Some say
the big biotech corporations went on the offensive, 'genetically'
and legally. Whether it was a conscious decision or not is
still rather unclear, it may be inherent in the products and
the system. The ever-vigilant Naomi Klein hints that it was
deliberate. In a perceptive June 2001 article, she outlines
the response of the biotechnology industry to the threat of
'GM labelling': "The real strategy is to introduce so
much genetic pollution that meeting the consumer demand for
GM-free food is seen as not possible. The idea, quite simply,
is to pollute faster than countries can legislate - then change
the laws to fit the contamination". This is what seems
to have happened in the European parliament decision: there
is no provision for a 'GM-free' food label as it is now thought
that this would be almost impossible - and prohibitively expensive
- to enforce. 'GM' pollution has now reached a stage where
it seems almost impossible to stop. To make the situation
even laughably and tragically worse, one of the biggest biotech
companies, Monsanto (whom we have come across in our series
on 'Water') seems to be actually suing some of the people
who may be being inadvertently polluted! Does this sound like
a horror film? It should.
One might say that the solution to all this
is to eat only 'organic' food, but that is the problem: within
the very near future there will be no pure organic food, GM
'pollution' will have made that impossible. The 'genie' is
out of the bottle and it is too late to put it back inside!
Kirk W Huffman
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