SENTIENT TIMES Feb/Mar 2002

Frankencorn Fight

Ronnie Cummins

On September 4, 2001 Mexican officials announced that genetically engineered (GE) corn plants have been detected growing alongside traditional corn varieties over a widespread area in the state of Oaxaca. For millennia corn has been sacred to the Maya and other native people of Mexico. Over centuries small farmers have carefully bred and preserved thousands of different traditional varieties of corn, called landraces, which are specific to each geographical region, soil type, and micro-climate of the country. Corn, or maize as it is called traditionally, remains today the most important crop for a quarter of the nation’s 10 million indigenous and small farmers. Corn tortillas play a major role in the diet of Mexico’s 100 million people. Critics have warned that GE corn should never be imported into Mexico, the most important world center of biodiversity for corn, since the gene pool of the nation’s 20,000 corn varieties and plant relatives, including the progenitor species of corn, called teosinte, could be irreversibly damaged by “genetic pollution” from the genetically engineered (herbicide-resistant or Bt-spliced) maize being aggressively marketed by Monsanto, Syngenta , and other agbiotech transnationals.

Under pressure to protect the nation’s corn biodiversity, Mexican authorities have proclaimed a moratorium on domestic cultivation of GE corn. Meanwhile, they have ignored the massive dumping of millions of tons of cheap (US taxpayer-subsidized) GE corn by corporations such Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill. Agronomists and environmentalists fear that Mexican farmers have now, perhaps unknowingly, spread this imported Frankencorn into most of the corn-growing regions of the country, by planting GE corn from the US which was supposed to be sold for human food consumption only. Since impoverished Mexican farmers are looking for the cheapest corn seed possible to plant, they are increasingly choosing to buy the imported GE-tainted corn from the US, since it is considerably cheaper than non-subsidized Mexican varieties.

Compounding Mexico’s genetic pollution problem is the fact that major overseas buyers of corn (Europe, Japan, Korea) are stubbornly refusing to buy gene-altered corn. Consequently North American exporters are finding it necessary to dump increasing amounts of GE-tainted maize on captive markets such as Mexico, China, Egypt, Colombia, Malaysia, and Brazil. Nineteen percent of the US corn, 14 million acres, is now genetically engineered, although GE acreage is down 30% from two years ago, mainly due to global resistance against Frankenfoods.

Corn dumping in Mexico has accelerated since the advent of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Under the relentless pressure of globalization, Mexico has been transformed from being a major producer of corn (producing 98% of its needs for example in 1994) to a major importer, ranking third in the world (after Japan and Korea) in terms of imports from the US and Canada. The reason for this is simple. Corn costs essentially $3.40 a bushel for family-sized farmers in the US and Canada to produce, and even more for a small farmer in Mexico. Yet Cargill and ADM, due to their monopoly control of the market, pay US farmers less than $2.00 a bushel, with the US taxpayer picking up the remainder of the tab. This enormous subsidy in turn gets reimbursed to farmers, although large corporate farms get the lion’s share of the US’s annual $20-30 billion in farm price support payments. Even with enormous taxpayer subsidies, most years US farmers have trouble even recuperating their costs of corn production—leading to demands by family farmers for a breakup of Cargill and ADM’s grain monopoly. Only organic corn farmers, operating outside ADM and Cargill’s cartel, are receiving a fair price for their harvest. And of course North American organic corn growers are increasingly alarmed over the fact that “genetic pollution” or gene flow from GE corn fields are starting to contaminate their valuable crops.

Longstanding Mexican government regulation of corn supply and prices, support for small corn growers, and price subsidies for corn tortillas for Mexican consumers have been eliminated, all at the behest of Cargill, ADM, and ADM’s powerful Mexican partner, Gruma/Maseca. The end result of this globalization process is that small and medium-sized farmers, both North and South of the border, can’t make a living, while ADM and Cargill (and their preferred customers such as McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Tyson, Smithfield) make a killing. Meanwhile, consumers, who have been promised that Free Trade would result in lower prices, are paying more for food every year. Corn tortillas, the main staple of the Mexican diet, have risen in price 300% since NAFTA came into effect.

As botanists and plant breeders warn, contaminating Mexico’s irreplaceable corn landraces and germplasm pool could be “catastrophic” for farmers and consumers. For example in 1970, millions of acres of the US corn crop were devastated by a Southern corn leaf blight which destroyed 15% of the total US harvest (50% of all corn in some areas), leading to over $1 billion in losses, not to mention marketplace shortages. By going to the “germplasm” bank of thousands of traditional varieties cultivated in Mexico, and withdrawing several varieties which were resistant to the Southern corn blight, plant breeders were able to use conventional cross-breeding and come up with a single blight-resistant hybrid variety which was planted in 1971—-thereby saving billions of dollars in losses and maintaining global food security.

Underlining the central importance of corn biodiversity and preserving traditional varieties or landraces, researchers have also found in recent years that a perennial variety of corn’s original parent, teosinte, found in Mexico, contains genes that can protect plants from seven of the nine principle viruses that infect corn crops in the US.
Even US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists have previously warned that genetically engineered crops should not be grown where wild relatives exist (prohibiting for example GE cotton from being grown in parts of southern Florida, where wild relatives of cotton exist), much less in biological centers of diversity such as the maize-growing areas of Mexico. Of course this concern over genetic pollution didn’t prevent the EPA in October 2001 from giving the green light to allow Bt corn to continue to be grown for seven more years in the US, ignoring environmental and public health concerns voiced by scientists and consumer groups—knowing full well that millions of tons of GE-tainted corn continue to be exported by US corporations to centers of corn biodiversity such as Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

Genetic engineering of agricultural crops and corn dumping not only pose a serious threat to Mexico (and Central America’s) corn biodiversity, but also pose a threat to continental peace and stability as well. Since NAFTA went into effect, local and regional markets for indigenous and small farmers in the region have been undermined and destroyed. Farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to sell their corn, beans, coffee, or other crops. Rural poverty and hunger have increased, forcing millions of campesinos to migrate to the US. Mounting desperation has also spawned widespread, at times violent, agrarian conflicts in Mexican states such as Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero and threatens to reignite armed struggle across Central America.

Human Health Hazards

Bt corn is designed to punch holes in the intestines of certain insects and kill them. But what does it do to the gut, immune system, and other vital organs of humans and animals? A good question, especially since the biotech industry, EPA, and other government officials have never bothered to look at this public health issue, despite growing concerns expressed by a broad cross-section of scientists and public interest consumer groups. Everyone by now has heard about the StarLink corn fiasco 18 months ago, when an illegal and likely allergenic variety of Bt corn contaminated 10% of the US corn crop and forced a billion dollar recall of 300 brand name products, including Kraft Taco Bell shells. But what about the other varieties of Bt corn, the stuff you’re likely eating every time you bite into a corn product which is not labeled “organic”?

The Gene Giants claim that Bt corn is chemically “substantially equivalent” to conventional corn, and that eating it, therefore, will have exactly the same physiological impact as consuming regular corn. Well-respected experts such as Dr. Michael Hansen from the Consumers Union point out that this is not true. The Bt endotoxin and proteins expressed in every cell of genetically engineered corn are different from what humans and animals have ever eaten before. The haphazard insertion of a “genetic cassette” (including promoters, vectors, and antibiotic resistance marker genes) into the corn host genome is essentially random since scientists don’t know if or when the foreign gene will be spliced into the plant’s DNA, which of hundreds or even thousands of proteins will be expressed or generated, or even how many copies of the gene will be produced. Bt, the naturally occurring soil bacteria, is not the same as Syngenta or Monsanto’s patented and gene-altered Bt forcefully injected into GE corn. Although there’s a lot we don’t know yet about the potential hazards of eating GE corn, in terms of toxins, allergies, and impacts on the human gut and digestive system, there are enough danger signs already to give us pause for thought. Mounting evidence includes the following:
• Hundreds of Americans over the past year have reported allergic reactions to the FDA after eating corn products likely containing StarLink corn or other Bt varieties.
• Scientists have pointed out that all Bt corn varieties produce proteins closely related to the suspected allergen in StarLink corn. Cattle and other animals have been observed on a number of farms in the Midwestern US refusing to eat genetically engineered corn, while simultaneously munching conventional corn, along with the entire cornstalk, right down to the ground.
• In a well-funded and carefully-designed experiment carried out by Dr. Arpad Pusztai in the UK in 1995-99, rats fed lectin-spliced potatoes (Bt is a member of the lectin family) suffered significant damage to their gut, immune system, and other vital organs. Pusztai later warned—after he was abruptly fired and his lab was shut down—that all gene-spliced lectins, including Bt crops, should be carefully investigated for possible adverse human health impacts.
• Gene-altered antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes, similar to those contained in Bt corn, have been found in the guts of bees which had consumed the pollen from GE plants. Sophisticated studies in the Netherlands and Britain have indicated that ARM genes can likely combine with bacteria already present in the human throat, mouth, and gut. These “armed genes” can then give rise to new virulent, antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, exacerbating the already serious problem of antibiotic resistant pathogens such as salmonella, now routinely found in non-organic meat and other animal products. The British Medical Association and the World Health Organization have recommended that the use of antibiotic resistance genes in GE corn and other food crops be eliminated.

More People are Choosing Organic Foods

The hazards of genetically engineered corn, and other GE foods, are frightening. But even if global resistance were able to drive GE corn off the market tomorrow, we would still be left with a highly toxic, chemical-intensive, industrial-style system of corn production which is depleting soil fertility, poisoning municipal water supplies, and quickly turning indigenous people and family farmers into an endangered species. Even without Frankencrops, we would still be facing an out-of-control globalization process, which is driving millions of farmers off the land and forcing desperate peasants to chop down remaining forests—in the process driving hundreds of thousands of landraces and traditional varieties of plants, microorganisms, (and animals) into extinction.

Syngenta’s conventional (non-GE) corn and pesticides are just as scary as their Frankencorn. Syngenta profits by selling corn farmers either gene-altered Bt corn or its conventional (fertilizer and pesticide-intensive) hybrids, along with its super toxic weed killer, Atrazine, a known carcinogen. Unfortunately Atrazine not only kills weeds, but also ends up as a dangerous residue in the meat and dairy products of animals that have eaten Atrazine-sprayed corn. Atrazine, along with its companion pesticides, have also polluted wells and drinking water in 97% of the communities in the US Corn Belt.

Similarly, Monsanto is in the business of selling toxic pesticides and herbicides, whether it is to farmers growing GE crops, farmers growing non-GE hybrid crops, Roundup-spraying drug warriors in Colombia or California, or suburbanites trying to get that perfectly green lawn. After 100 years of poisoning the public with substances like PCBs and Agent Orange, Monsanto tells us that their latest toxic chemicals such as Roundup, or their latest seed varieties, such as Roundup Ready corn are perfectly safe. Should we believe them? Or what about Cargill? They’re happy to sell their chemical nitrate fertilizers (which also end up in most Americans’ drinking water) to farmers, whether they are planting GE Frankencrops or just conventional industrial hybrids. Or ADM, who are happy to sell you either GE corn or non-GE corn, as long as they can drive the prices down which they pay to farmers, and drive the prices up to their “enemy,” the consumer.

The solution of course to all this is to buy and eat organic food, and to buy from local and regional farmers and companies, rather than the transnational corporations whenever possible. Mexicans can protect their health and preserve their biodiversity by boycotting gringo GE-tainted corn and buying organic corn pro-duced by Mexican farmers cultivating tradi-tional varieties. US con-sumers similarly can protect their health, their drinking water, and their children by buying organic and local. Fortunately this is what more and more people are doing everyday, not only in the USA but across the world. Farmers in 130 nations are now producing certified organic food for a booming market of organic consumers, making organic the fasting growing component of world agriculture. Thirty million Americans are now buying organic food and the numbers are rising every month. Since September 11, sales of organic and natural food have increased 8%.

Beyond voting with our consumer dollars and our knives and forks for a sustainable and organic future, organic consumers also need to organize ourselves into a potent political force. As the labor populist Mother Jones told rural Americans 100 years ago: “It’s time to raise less corn and raise more hell.” Instead of letting the politicians raise our taxes in order to subsidize the profits of the Gene Giants and corporate agribusiness, we should be raising hell in Washington and in our state capitals to raise corporate taxes to subsidize healthy food and a healthy environment. Instead of subsidizing GE corn, pesticide-intensive corn, and industrial-sized farms, our billions of dollars in farm subsidies should be promoting organic agriculture, saving family farms, and promoting Fair Trade, not Free Trade, among nations.

From the BioDemocracy News #37 of the Organic Consumers Association. Visit www.organicconsumers.org for the latest news and developments on GE foods, Mad Cow disease, food irradiation, industrial agriculture, food safety, organic food, globalization, and action alerts.

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US Threatens Europe's Right to Choose on GM Foods

A key World Trade Organization document obtained by environmental activist group Friends of the Earth shows that the US is putting increasing pressure on Europe to weaken its proposed laws on GM foods and crops.
The document is the US’s response to the WTO over EU proposals to improve the safety testing of GM foods and to widely increase consumer choice and information. The US claims the current proposals will be “more trade restrictive than necessary,” and that they should not include animal feeds, even though most GM crops are fed to farm animals, and that they should re-define all food crops as “genetically modified.”
Meanwhile, a recent EU opinion poll showed that 94.6% of citizens stated that they want the right to choose about GM foods.

Norfolk Genetic Information Network; www.ngin.org.uk.

New Study Questions Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods

A study released last January reveals a critical, long-overlooked flaw in the science behind the multi-billion dollar genetic engineering industry, raising serious questions about the safety of genetically engineered foods. Dr. Barry Commoner, a prominent biologist, demonstrates that the bioengineering industry, which now accounts for 25-50 percent of the U.S. corn and soybean crop, relies on a 40-year-old theory that DNA genes are in total control of inheritance in all forms of life. According to this theory—the “central dogma”—the outcome of transferring a gene from one organism to another is always “specific, precise and predictable,” and therefore safe.
A series of scientific reports that directly contradict the established theory includes last year’s Human Genome Project, which found there are too few human genes to account for the vast inherited differences between people and lower animals or plants, indicating that agents other than DNA must contribute to genetic complexity.
The claim of one-to-one correspon-dence between a gene’s chemical composition and the structure of the particular protein that engenders an inherited trait is questionable, according to Dr. Commoner, who notes that under the influence of specialized proteins that carry out “alternative splicing,” a single gene can give rise to a variety of different proteins, resulting in more than a single inherited trait per gene. As a result, the gene’s effect on inheritance cannot be predicted simply from its chemical composition.
Commoner’s research sounds a public alarm concerning the processes by which agricultural biotechnology companies genetically modify food crops. Scientists simply assume the genes they insert into these plants always produce only the desired effect with no other impact on the plant’s genetics. However, recent studies show that the plant’s own genes can be disrupted in transgenic plants. Such outcomes are undetected because there is little or no governmental regulation of the industry.
“Genetically engineered crops represent a huge uncontrolled experiment whose outcome is inherently unpre-dictable,” Commoner concludes. “The results could be catastrophic … experi-mental data, shorn of dogmatic theories, point to the irreducible complexity of the living cell, which suggests that any artificially altered genetic system must sooner or later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous consequences.”
Commoner charges that the central dogma, a seductively simple explanation of heredity, has led most molecular geneticists to believe it was “too good not to be true.” As a result, the central dogma has been immune to the revisions called for by the growing array of contradictory data, allowing the biotechnology industry to unwittingly impose massive, scien-tifically unsound practices on agriculture.
“Dr. Commoner’s work challenges the legitimacy of the agricultural biotech-nology industry,” said Andrew Kimbrell, Director of the Center on Food Safety. “For years, multibillion dollar biotech com-panies have been selling the American people and our government on the safety of their products. We now see their claims of safety are based on faulty assumptions that don’t hold up to rigorous scientific review.”
The study, reported in Harper’s Mag-azine, is the initial publication of a new initiative called “The Critical Genetics Project” directed by Dr. Commoner in collaboration with molecular geneticist Dr. Andreas Athanasiou, at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Queens College, City University of New York, (718) 670-4182.

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