Philanthrogopolies

A vast majority of countries prohibit the use of genetically modified crops: In 2012, 98 percent of the global land area planted with GM crops belonged to just 10 countries. Since GM crops were introduced into the U.S. market in 1996, their supporters have been promising higher crop yields. Results are failing to live up to these promises, however, and new evidence to the contrary is continually emerging. Discontent is growing among farmers, who are paying much more for seeds and seeing no difference in yields. A further headache for the biotech companies is that the patents on a number of transgenic crops, like the glyphosate-resistant RR soybean*, will begin to expire in 2015. Transnational corporations, with the help of fat cats like Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, are therefore drawing up strategies to not only hold on to their oligopolies, but expand their markets under the guise of philanthropy.

A new article published in the February 2013 edition of the scientific journal, Nature Biotechnology, shows that GM corn almost always produces lower crop yields. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin (Guanming Shi, J. Chavas and J. Lauer) analyzed corn crop yields in the state of Wisconsin over several decades and, despite their obvious sympathy for transgenics, concluded that only two strains of genetically modified corn showed a slight increase in crop yields, while the remaining GM crops yielded less than the hybrids. When transgenic traits were combined — herbicide resistance with Bt insecticide expression, for instance — they found that yields were always lower. This was attributed by the authors to a negative gene interaction effect in the so-called stacked trait crops, despite the fact that stacked transgenic traits “were expected to merge.” On the plus side, the study indicates that transgenic crops do show greater stability. In other words, yields are lower, but consistently so. That’s a plus, right?

Irony aside, this unintended effect of gene interaction shows that producers of transgenic crops are unable to predict the full range of consequences of genetic manipulation, as responsible scientists have repeatedly pointed out. Genetic engineering is a “technology” with so many unknown factors as to be unworthy of the name and should never have left the laboratory.

That said, there is no need for a technology to be good in order for it to reach the markets: Greedy corporations ready to pay or do whatever it takes with marketing, corruption and market-controlling strategies are all that is needed.

For instance, the same transnational corporations that control the GM seed market control the highest-yielding hybrid seed market, too — but they prefer to sell the GM seeds because they are patented. Contamination [of non-transgenic crops through pollen drift] is detectable and creates greater farmer dependence, as well as a sideline in litigation against farmers for “illegal use” of their patented genes.

In the United States, Monsanto has taken 410 farmers and 56 small farm businesses to court, according to the report “Seed Giants vs. US Farmers” (Center for Food Safety, 2013.) The figures for out-of-court settlements are much higher because with Monsanto winning the lawsuits, fear has spread among farmers, who prefer to agree a settlement and save on court costs. DuPont-Pioneer has also established a “gene police” which permits it to take samples from farmers’ crops in order to then take the farmers to court.

Inexorably, though, the patents for many GM crops will expire over the next few years, so the biotech companies have devised strategies to avoid losing control of the markets and even open up new ones, mostly in Latin American countries, where peasant farmers have few resources. A new report by the ETC Group (“Gene Giants and Philanthrogopoly” –www.etcgroup.org) exposes these manoeuvers.

The biotech companies’ first strategy is to stop selling GM seeds whose patents are nearing expiry and replace them with others that are almost identical, but with some minimal changes — just enough to merit a new patent. The RR2 soybean seed is a case in point. Already taking strong measures, a majority of the companies which control the GM crop market has agreed to share a kind of “transgene pool,” claiming that this will afford more certainty to farmers of crops with a soon-to-expire patent and allow them to continue planting in countries with biosecurity laws that require approval for renewal after a number of years. Such a claim is cynical in the extreme, for this is not about certainty, nor biosecurity. It is about legalizing a corporate cartel in order to strengthen what is already an iron grip on the market.

That is the context in which recent declarations by Bill Gates and Carlos Slim need to be placed. Together with the director general of the International Center for the Improvement of Maize and Wheat, Gates and Slim have announced their plans to give away GM seeds to peasant farmers. The seeds in question are those with patents about to expire and which the biotech companies will be removing from the markets — except for the new markets they hope to create. It is a Trojan horse with which to invade peasant farmlands with GM crops so that farmers abandon their own seeds and become dependent on corporate ones. These aid packages are likely to disappoint, since geographic irregularities and the lack of irrigation systems and agrochemicals mean that GM and hybrid crops perform poorly on peasant farmlands. Nonetheless, their implementation could cause considerable damage to peasant farmers and their ability to both produce their own food and go on creating seed diversity, particularly in the face of climate change. This is not about philanthropy, it is about monopolies and corporate greed.

The author is a researcher for the ETC Group.

*Translator’s note: The Roundup Ready soybean, produced by Monsanto, resists spraying with the glyphosate-containing herbicide, Roundup, also produced by Monsanto. It allows farmers to spray the crop for weeds throughout the crop cycle, instead of only before planting.