Excerpted from:
BioDemocracy News #24 February 2000 (formerly CFS News)
News and Analysis on Genetic Engineering, Factory Farming, & Organics
by: Ronnie Cummins
BioDemocracy Campaign <www.purefood.org>
A Project of the Organic Consumers Association
__________________________________________________________________
Frankenfoods Fight in North America: Consumers Organize & Industry
Strikes Back
Quotes of the Month:
"Gene Grabowski [US Grocery Manufacturers Association] described
December [1999] as a month of conflict with genetic engineering's
opponents. 'Theyn hit us with everything they had, and they couldn't put
us down,' said Grabowski... 'Now, we strike back.' " Quoted by Bill
Lambrecht in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 9, 2000.
"With the controversy over genetically modified foods spreading across
the globe and taking a toll on the stocks of companies with
agricultural-biotechnology businesses, it's hard to see those companies
as a good investment, even in the long term." The Wall Street Journal,
Jan. 7, 2000.
__________________________________________________________________
Less than two weeks after "The Battle of Seattle," on December 13, 1999
the Organic Consumers Association managed to organize, with the support
of a new national coalition called GEAN (Genetic Engineering Action
Network), a noon street protest of over a thousand people outside Food
and Drug Administration hearings on genetically engineered foods in
Oakland, California. The New York Times (Dec. 14) correctly identified
the protest as "the largest rally ever in the United States against the
use of genetic engineering in food." In the week leading up to the
protest the OCA telephone bank called 10,000 contacts in the San
Francisco Bay area, while GEAN volunteers handed out 20,000 leaflets to
consumers in front of supermarkets and natural food grocery stores. Both
over the telephone and in the streets, the reaction of Californians to
our "Say No to Frankenfoods" message was overwhelmingly positive. There
is no longer any doubt that the global controversy over genetically
engineered foods and crops has spread to the USA.
Five weeks later on Jan. 22 in sub-zero temperatures, a thousand
spirited demonstrators marched through the streets of Montreal,
denouncing the governments of the so-called "Miami Group" (the US,
Canada, Australia, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay) for trying to subvert
a Biosafety Treaty that would regulate the multi-billion dollar
international trade in genetically engineered foods and organisms.
Chanting "Life before profits!" and "We will not be guinea pigs," an
internationalist contingent, mobilized by Greenpeace and the Council of
Canadians, called for a global moratorium on gene-foods and crops. At a
news conference the day before, a protester threw a pie in the face of
Joyce Groote, the genetic engineering industry's top lobbyist in Canada.
But street protests in Oakland and Montreal are just the most visible
signs of increasing resistance in North America. Since the last issue of
BioDemocracy News, the Gene Giants and the Miami Group have suffered a
number of setbacks, including the following:
* On Dec. 14 headline news stories reported that Jeremy Rifkin's
Foundation on Economic Trends, joined by the National Family Farm
Coalition, had filed a federal lawsuit against the Monsanto corporation,
alleging that Monsanto had engaged in monopolistic business practices
and had commercialized genetically altered crops without first ensuring
they were safe for consumers and the environment.
* In late-December Credit Suisse First Boston, one of the world's
largest and most influential financial advisors, categorized the
agbiotech industry as suffering from "negative momentum," pointing out
that major food corporations are running scared and that "if anyone is
in control it appears to be environment and consumer groups."
* In a long-anticipated move, Monsanto's major stockholders forced the
company in December into a planned merger with pharmaceutical giant
Pharmacia & Upjohn and to spin off its controversial, debt-ridden
agbiotech division into a separate company. As the Wall Street Journal
stated Dec. 21 the planned merger "is likely not only to push biotech to
the back burner, but also to cost Monsanto its independence..." The
Monsanto-Pharmacia merger comes on the heels of a similar move by
European life science giants Novartis and AstraZeneca last year, who
combined their agbiotech divisions together in order to sell them off,
"effectively washing their hands of crop biotechnology," according to
the Journal. For more information see:
http://www.purefood.org/Monsanto/pharmagedon.cfm>
* Reuters news service reported on Jan. 13 in a straw poll that US
farmers plan to "cut back sharply" on planting genetically engineered
soybeans, corn, and cotton this year, in response to the growing global
backlash against GE foods. Farmers told Reuters to expect reductions of
15% in RoundUp Ready soybeans, 22 % for RoundUp Ready corn, 24 % for Bt
corn, and 26 % for Bt cotton.
* Media coverage of the gene-foods controversy continued to increase
substantially in both the United States and Canada (as well as other
nations) in the last quarter of 1999. Estimates last fall, based on
computer-based searches of news articles, indicated up to a six-fold
increase in news stories on genetically engineered foods in North
America in 1999 as compared to 1998.
* On Dec. 30 Bloomberg News reported that Whole Foods and Wild Oats,
the two largest natural food supermarket chains in the US, plan to ban
genetically engineered ingredients from their hundreds of private-label
products. The two companies have combined sales of almost two billion
dollars annually. Whole Foods owns 103 stores in 22 states and
Washington, D.C., and has more than 600 products carrying its own brand
name. Wild Oats operates 110 stores in 22 states and British Columbia,
with 700 products under its own brand. The move puts pressure on other
major US food chains and manufacturers to offer GE-free or certified
organic products. Organic food--the only US food currently guaranteed to
be GE-free--is the fastest-growing and most profitable segment of
American agriculture, with projected sales this year of $6.6 billion,
representing 1.5% of all grocery retail sales in the US. In a 1997 poll
by Novartis, 54% of American consumers said they would like to see
organic become the predominant form of agricultural production in the
US.
* In late-January leading US corn chip manufacturer Frito-Lay, a
subsidiary of PepsiCo Inc., announced that they were sending out new
contracts to their corn suppliers, asking them not to use genetically
engineered corn. The news unnerved the pro-biotech Farm Bureau, who
accused Frito-Lay--like Gerber and Heinz baby foods last July-- of
"caving in" to US anti-biotech activists. Frito-Lay's move also
disturbed their competitors, one of whom was quoted in the Washington
Post on February 6: "If you're one of Frito's competitors you're
saying, 'what are they up to?... Are they getting ready to jump out from
behind a bush and bash us with a label,' boasting that they are free of
genetically engineered ingredients?" Frito-Lay is one of the primary
targets of a new "Frankenfoods 15" boycott campaign being organized by
the Organic Consumers Association and Friends of the Earth. For a copy
of our Frankenfoods 15 leaflet in printable format see:
<http://www.purefood.org/ge/supermktleaf.pdf>
According to Simon Harris, California field organizer for the OCA,
Frito-Lay's recent moves are "a sign that they're getting nervous." But
Harris also warns that "Frito-Lay has gone only half way. They've
admitted that their corn contracts are only applicable to 95% of their
suppliers, that they can't guarantee that their cooking oils are
GE-free, and have stated that they have no plans for labeling their
products. Until Frito-Lay goes all the way and announces that they will
start enforcing 'no-GE contracts' with all their suppliers and labeling
their products as free of genetically engineered ingredients, they will
remain at the top of our Frankenfoods 15 boycott list."
* Farmers Weekly (a UK newspaper) reported on Feb. 4 that a US expert
on potatoes, Oscar Gutbrod from Oregon State University, speaking at the
Agra Europe Potato 2000 conference in Rome, stated that USA fast-food
giants McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's were refusing to accept
genetically engineered potatoes for their french fries. Informed sources
have told BioDemocracy News that McDonald's has binding contracts with
at least some, and perhaps all, of their US potato suppliers prohibiting
the use of Monsanto's Bt-spliced potatoes. However, McDonald's, another
of our Frankenfoods 15 boycott targets, has refused to send the OCA
their policy on GE potatoes in writing. And as Gutbrod noted in his
speech in Rome, even if America's fast-food giants have quietly banned
Frankenfries from their kitchens, the grease that they're fried in is
routinely derived from GE corn, cottonseed, and soya.
* A federal judge ruled on January 19 that the US Environmental
Protection Agency must "res ond" within 60 days to the charges in a
lawsuit on Bt-spliced crops filed by attorneys for the Center for Food
Safety (CFS).
In February 1999, CFS, Greenpeace, and a coalition of over 70
plaintiffs, including the International Federation of Organic
Agricultural Movements, sued the EPA, charging the agency with the
wanton destruction of the world's most important biological
pesticide--Bt. Non-GE Bt sprays have been used sparingly by organic
farmers for years, but are now under threat from "superpests" engendered
by genetically engineered crops. The lawsuit calls for all Bt crops to
be pulled off the market. Bt corn, cotton, and potatoes make up
approximately 25% of the global acreage of GE crops. See:
<http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org>
* The US, Canada, and Argentina--who produce almost 99% of the world's
GE crops-- failed in their efforts to prevent any regulation whatsoever
of international trade in genetically engineered foods, crops,
medicines, and organisms at the Biosafety Treaty meeting in Montreal in
January. However the Biosafety Protocol that emerged from Montreal is at
best a partial victory. Bulk commodities shipments, seeds, and animal
feeds will have to be labeled as containing GMOs (genetically modified
organisms), but not for at least two years, and even then vague labels
will say "this product may contain" rather than giving specific
information. GE and non-GE crops will not be required to be segregated
in growing areas and in shipping and packaging, and individual food
products (cooking oils, meat)--as opposed to bulk grain or seed
shipments--will not have to be labeled at all. In addition the Protocol
will have to be balanced and made congruent--in legal terms--with WTO
trade regulations. Countries will be allowed to impose import
restrictions on GMOs, but only on the basis of so-called "sound
science."
* North American liquor giant Seagram announced on January 21 that they
will not be accepting any genetically engineered corn or other grains
next year.
* US Under Secretary of Commerce David Aron stated at an international
trade conference in the Netherlands on Jan. 21 that US exporters are
willing to meet the EU's one percent threshold on labeling food products
containing genetically engineered ingredients, although he told Reuters
"labeling will actually undermine confidence in products, in government,
and in the regulatory process."
* Direct action. The clandestine Earth Liberation Front sabotaged an
agbiotech lab at Michigan State University on Dec. 31, causing $400,000
in damages. On Jan. 21 "Anti Genetix" activists uprooted genetically
engineered strawberries in a test plot near Watsonville, California.
The Watsonville "decontamination" incident is the 21st known action
taken against genetically engineered crops and multinational
biotechnology corporations in the last year in North America. It
occurred just a week after a raid on a Federal Biotech facility in
Albany, California in which transgenic wheat was destroyed.
Counterpunch: The Biotech Industry Strikes Back
As we mentioned in the last issue of BioDemocracy News, the agbiotech
industry has launched an unprecedented multi-million dollar PR campaign
to counteract the growing power of the anti-GE movement across the
globe. As Edward Shonsey, CEO of Novartis told the New York Times last
year, anti-genetic engineering campaigners have "crossed the boundaries
of reasonableness, and now it's up to us to protect and defend
biotechnology."
As Canadian activist Brewster Kneen points out in his excellent
newsletter, The Ram's Horn <http://www.ramshorn.bc.ca> the biotech
industry has "turned hysterical over the loss of control over the media"
and has launched an all-out effort to discredit its critics and
brainwash the public. As the Ram's Horn (Jan. 2000) puts it: "The flood
of well-programmed letters-to-the-editor, op-ed pieces, and planted
articles spewing the party line on the wonders of biotech and decrying
what they describe as the malicious intentions of those who resist it,
is obviously not spontaneous."
In addition to its PR and media campaign, the agbiotech lobby has
recently gone on the offensive:
* Reuters reported Jan. 28 that agribusiness giant Archer Daniels
Midland Co. had reversed its four-month-old company position on
requiring farmers to segregate genetically engineered corn and
soybeans. ADM Chairman G. Allen Andreas told the Chicago Tribune that
"the pendulum is beginning to turn back" on the controversy surrounding
GE crops.
* The US Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3 million businesses,
announced in early January that they were becoming a member of the
pro-biotech trade association, the Alliance for Better Foods. Bill
Kovacs, the Chamber's vice-president for environmental and regulatory
affairs, told the Omaha [Nebraska] World-Herald Jan. 5 "We are trying to
raise the awareness of the business community that if you permit an
assault on this technology, you are really opening the door for an
assault on all technology."
* Thirty-five powerful industry groups, including the National
Association of Manufacturers, the Farm Bureau, the National Food
Processors Association, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Grocery
Manufacturers Association, told a US Congressional subcommittee Jan. 28
not to require labeling or safety-testing of genetically engineered
foods. Mandatory labels would "send the misleading message that the
government is not confident of the safety of the U.S. food supply," the
groups stated.
Specifically the 35 groups told Congress not to support a mandatory
labeling bill introduced last year by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio
Democrat. Kucinich's bill currently has several dozen Congressional
co-sponsors.
* Cargill, the nation's largest grain buyer, reaffirmed in December
that it would accept genetically engineered crops at all of it grain
elevators across North America.
Cargill's announcement "settled down the market," according to Sano
Shimoda of BioScience Securities, a brokerage and investment banking
firm in the San Francisco Bay area. "Farmers are [now] feeling a lot
more comfortable planting genetically enhanced seed varieties," Shimodo
told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune Jan.17. According to the Tribune "some
analysts who advise farm-commodity traders in Chicago are softening
predictions they made last fall that farmers would back away from the
new varieties. This GMO acreage may not be down as much as we had
thought when the hype and concern was intensifying last fall," said Rich
Feltes, an analyst for Refco Inc. of Chicago.
* Monsanto announced Jan. 17 major plans for expanding GE cotton
cultivation in China. According to a Monsanto press release there are
already two million farmers in China growing Bt cotton, while 2000
scientists in 137 labs across the country are working on new biotech
crops.
* The Farm Bureau published poll results on Jan. 11--reprinted in
newspapers all across the United States--which supposedly found that
"Nearly three-fourths of American consumers would support genetically
modified crops if the technology means farmers can reduce pesticide
use."
Of course as BioDemocracy News has previously pointed out, even official
USDA statistics for 1997-98 show that farmers planting GE crops have not
reduced their use of pesticides, and in fact in many cases are using
more.
See <http://www.biotech-info.net>
The Farm Bureau poll follows in the wake of a number of other rather
dubious polls purporting to prove that American consumers support
agbiotech. For an expose of the American biotech industry's favorite
pollster Thomas Hoban, see:
<http://www.purefood.org/ge/hoban.cfm>
* On Jan. 12, at a public meeting in Spokane, Washington, Dr. Michael
Phillips, a spokesperson for the Biotechnology Industry Organization,
announced that legislation will be introduced in Congress to make it a
federal crime to trespass on or damage experimental agricultural test
plots of genetically engineered crops.
* U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman reaffirmed on Jan. 10 that the
federal government is not likely to require U.S. food companies and
grocery stores to put labels on genetically engineered foods. At a press
conference in Washington, Glickman stated "I, at this stage, do not see
any of what I call mandatory or regulatory activities taking place from
the government which will order anybody to do anything with respect to
these issues, whether it's labeling or anything else."
* On Feb. 4, ABC national TV aired a program attacking the safety of
organic food, alleging that animal manure-based compost fertilizers used
on organic farms are contributing factors to America's ongoing E-coli
food poisoning epidemic, and that claims that organic foods are safer
and more nutritious than conventional foods are fraudulent. The "20-20"
news program was directed by the infamous anti-environmental TV
journalist, John Stossel, aided and abetted by agbiotech's favorite
"scientific expert," Dennis Avery. For an expose of Dennis Avery see the
back issue of this newsletter on our website (CFS News #16) or else the
current issue of PR Watch
<http://www.prwatch.org/99Q4/avery.html>
What's Next on the FDA Frankenfoods Agenda?
After reviewing recent industry documents as well as talking with our
sources in Washington, BioDemocracy News expects the Clinton
Administration--possibly within the next 60 days--to unveil a new
three-pronged program of proposed federal regulations on gene-foods.
These regulations will be carefully packaged so as to confuse the
public, blunt growing anti-biotech activism, and create the false
4impression that Washington and the biotech industry are willing to
respect consumer choice and safety concerns over genetically engineered
foods. Our predictions are that Clinton and Gore, backed by the giants
of the food industry, will soon:
* Call for "voluntary" industry labeling of genetically engineered
foods. In other words food manufacturers and supermarkets will be
allowed to tell you--if they want to--that "this product may have been
improved through modern biotechnology" or something like that. In
addition some companies, following the pattern of Frito-Lay, will issue
vague statements that their products, or most of their products, are
GE-free, even if they aren't.
* Current voluntary "consultations" between US regulatory agencies and
genetic engineering companies preparing to commercialize GE foods and
crops will be made "mandatory." Of course mandatory consultations are no
better than voluntary consultations unless they require strict,
precautionary safety-testing, including stringent compositional
analysis, toxicological testing, and environmental impact analyses.
* Some or all of the company data in these soon-to-be-mandatory
consultations will be placed into the "public domain" for public
scrutiny. Again unless strict pre-market safety-testing is required,
including long-term feeding studies for animals and humans, public
disclosure of company data will be meaningless.
In any case, the Frankenfoods controversy will continue, both in North
America and across the world. Stay tuned to our website:
<www.purefood.org>
and BioDemocracy News for the latest developments.
Ronnie Cummins
BioDemocracy Campaign/Organic Consumers Association
6114 Hwy 61
Little Marais, Mn. 55614
Tel. 218-226-4164
Fax 218-226-4157
email: alliance@mr.net
http://www.purefood.org
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