Conference Pushes Biotech Acceptance by Third World

At a recent gathering of top-level agriculture policy-makers from 120 countries, organic and sustainable agriculture took a back seat to a promotional blitz for genetically modified (GM) food and crops

By Danila Oder in Sacramento, California: 3 July 2003

The promise of food biotechnology was the main theme of the US organizers of the Ministerial Conference and Exposition on Agricultural Science and Technology, held June 22-25 in Sacramento, California. About 115 government ministers and 400 participants attended the conference, sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The US Agency for International Development (USAID) paid the travel expenses of the delegates from many poorer countries, encouraging them to meet with US government and industry officials

A conflicting meeting hosted by the European Parliament meant that some officials of European governments decided not to attend. German Agriculture Minister Renate Künast, the only scheduled panelist from Western Europe, pulled out of the conference amid speculation that she did not endorse the organizers' pro-biotech approach.

The conference included 65 panel presentations, covering both low technologies like drip irrigation and high technologies like satellite mapping systems. But organizers, including two keynote speakers, National Science Foundation Director Dr. Rita Colwell and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Norman Borlaug, repeatedly and enthusiastically promoted the promise of biotechnology. Both U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman and Philippines Secretary of Agriculture Luis Lorenzo Jr., encouraged delegates to demonstrate "political will."

USDA Deputy Commissioner Lester M. Crawford pointedly said: "[As for] the regulatory system of most countries: The dog may bark but the caravan goes on."

Throughout the conference, organizers urged attendees to make decisions about regulations and the health impact and environmental safety of biotechnology, based on existing agrochemical-resistant and pest-resistant commodity crops grown by First World farmers using refuges and regulated by well-funded Western agencies. The question whether a First-World style regulatory system was appropriate for regulating future biotech Third World staple crops went unasked. Nor did the organizers address the question of how implementing a First-World style intellectual property system would affect Third World farmers. There was no mention from the featured speakers or in the biotech panels of hundreds of recent lawsuits against North American farmers inadvertently growing patented plants. Nor was there any mention of recent near-contamination of the U.S. food supply from field testing of biopharmaceutical crops.

For many subsistence economies, biotechnology will be judged on its performance, not on hype. At this time, the biotech crops primarily of interest to the Third World - low-cost or free, disease-resistant, high-yielding, savable, staple crops like yams and cassava - are not yet commercialized, though dozens are under development at universities and research institutes.

Many delegations were not ready to make decisions about biotech; they came to the conference with their own practical problems to be solved. A top health ministry official from Samoa told The Inquisitor: "we are looking with interest at the technology here, and asking, do we really need this? How can we access it and apply it? We are interested in biotech potatoes and maize, but if we bring it, will it bring any other problems with our own food crops?"

The Rwandan Minister of Agriculture, Ephraim Kabaija, was concerned that biotech seeds, like hybrid seeds, might be unstable and lose some of their desirable characteristics if saved and planted year after year. Kabaija worried that if Rwandan farmers use them, they will abandon their traditional farming knowledge. And he questioned the real benefits on offer. Cassava, one of Rwanda's staple crops, is currently being decimated by mosaic virus. "If (the) Americans wanted, in one year they could provide a disease-resistant cassava plant," Kabaija claimed. "I don't think they're honest about sharing this technology."

In her opening address, Ann Veneman claimed that biotechnology is already helping both small and large-scale farmers around the world by boosting yields, lowering costs, reducing pesticide use and making crops more resistant to disease, pests and drought. Some of these claims appear weak or unfounded. There are as yet no drought resistant biotech crop on the market, for instance, despite Veneman's claims.

The evidence presented at the conference from existing biotechnology has not increased yields and reduced hunger. A panel consisting in part of the biotech promoters' top salesmen offered the only evidence for increased yields: field trials with higher yields from Yieldgard corn in the Philippines, and two years experience with insect-protected cotton in South Africa. Even so, a 2002 Soil Association report on North America found that, based on the six years of evidence, increased yields from biotech crops have generally not materialized, and for Roundup Ready soybeans, yields have decreased from 6-11%. For more information, go to www.soilassociation.org.

Indeed, current biotech corn and soybean crops are primarily used for animal food. The Philippine corn farmer said that the higher-yielding biotech corn will be used to feed animals and support growing Philippine demand for chicken and pork. Monsanto Vice President Dr. Robert Fraley told the panel the world will need 75% more food in 20 years, mostly because people are dramatically increasing their consumption of animal products.

Kenyan-born Harvard University Professor Calestous Juma told the audience that agriculture ministers should create scientific advisory bodies to deal with biotechnology. Juma argued that the debate over biotech has been controlled by ministries of environment and health. He said moving the debate to science was essential, "when you have an installed constituency that continually argues against it."

Events and protests organized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tried to spotlight the issues of corporate control of seeds and intellectual property rights that favor corporations over farmers. Carolyn Lucas, a British Green Party member of the European Parliament told the audience at an outside NGO-sponsored panel : "If [genetically-modified organisms] are safe, why are the GM companies doing all they can to lobby me and my colleagues in the European Parliament to exempt them from liability?"

Contamination of wild and organic plants remains a major focus of concern for anti-biotech groups. Worries have grown since 2001, when scientists found that wild corn in its Mexican homeland contained DNA from biotech corn seeds intended for food. Yet when Mexican Environment Minister Victor Del Angel asked Monsanto's Fraley what could be done to prevent the contamination of genetic resources, Fraley downplayed the issue, saying: "this is not contamination, this is the natural flow of genes that has gone on for thousands of years."

At the conference, organic farming was ignored. None of the featured speakers mentioned organics, only one panel speaker at the event focused on organic approaches, and the USDA did not have a booth at the accompanying exposition to display its new national organic certification program. The 12 nearby field trips provided for the delegates - including a dairy, a rice miller and an eco-pesticide manufacturer - did not include an organic farm.

At a colorful booth at the product exhibition, California Certified Organic Farmers displayed dozens of varieties of flawless fresh fruits and vegetables. CCOF President Brian Leahy said at least 20 ministers had spoken with the CCOF staff about organic production and certification, both for local markets and for export. A dinner hosted by the International Forum on Globalization and designed by chef and organics advocate Alice Waters featured speeches by anti-biotech activists including Consumers Union scientist Dr. Michael Hanson, American lawyer Andrew Kimbrell and Monsanto-sued Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser.

A crowd of 3,000 to 4,000 biotech critics marched through downtown Sacramento, monitored by about 1,000 police, with armored vehicles, riot gear, plastic handcuffs and guns. Police lined the streets around the convention center, and turned its perimeter into a no-pass zone. Several dozen people were arrested, some for occupying a closed community garden and others while complying with police orders.

Inside the conference hall, some panelists criticized the protesters for masking concerns about trade and globalization with complaints about the health and environmental safety of biotech. Yet Gregory Jaffe, a representative of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a moderately pro-biotech consumer group favored by the USDA, warned that that protesters will not go away. "If people's concerns are not addressed," said Jaffe, "they will wrap their ethical, religious, economic and trade concerns around a safety concern."