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Marketing
the suicide seed
In the second week of February the United Nations convened a meeting in
Bangkok that, despite its importance, failed to make newspaper
headlines or feature anywhere in news broadcasts. The lack of apparent
newsworthiness, however, belies the meeting’s significance, for in time
the issue under discussion could well turn out to have profound
consequences for the world’s food supply.
At this meeting the Canadian government attempted to overturn the 1998
international moratorium on the commercialisation of ‘sterile gene
technology.’ The Canadian delegation, acting on behalf of the
multinational seed companies as well as the US government – not a party
to the UN Biodiversity Convention – fiercely attacked a UN report which
urged governments throughout the world to ban this particularly nasty
branch of GM technology. A reversal of the current moratorium would
permit the unleashing of what is known as the Terminator seed with
devastating consequences to farmers, particularly in the undeveloped
world.
So why should this issue cause so much concern? The US Department of
Agriculture first developed Terminator technology in conjunction with
multinational seed corporations in the late 1990s. The primary inventor
of this technology, Melvin J. Oliver of the United States Department of
Agriculture, explained: “Our mission is to protect US agriculture and
to make us competitive in the face of foreign competition. Without
this, there is no way of protecting the patented seed technology”
(www.earthisland.org). The avowed aim was to protect the investment in
the production of superior genetically modified seeds. It gave
scientists the ability to modify plants that would produce seeds that
grow to maturity but would be incapable of germinating if planted. Put
simply, this means that while farmers will get a good crop in the first
year of sowing, if they try to save harvested seed for planting in the
following year the crop will be sterile, hence the name ‘Terminator’.
When the discovery was made public in 1998 it provoked global
condemnation, particularly from Asian and African countries and the UN
Convention on Biological Diversity was compelled to impose a moratorium
on its further development. To all intents and purposes, the issue
seemed closed, although this did not deter the seed corporations from
continuing their research and registering patent rights over areas of
this technology.
Better than patents
Commercialising Terminator would have a devastating impact on an
estimated 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest farmers who depend on
‘saved seeds’ and who exchange seed to develop new varieties suited to
their growing conditions as a primary source of seed stock, and hence
food. In practice genetically modified Terminator seeds will be neither
affordable nor relevant to the needs of farmers in the undeveloped
world. Terminator or ‘suicide seeds’ have been developed to prevent the
successful sowing of ‘saved seeds,’ with a view to forcing farmers to
purchase new seed every year and making them reliant on the seed market
dominated by the gene corporations. As a means of controlling seed
usage this biological solution is more permanent and infinitely more
effective than patent or legal restrictions that seek to deny farmers
the right to raise their own seed bank. In short Terminator has
been developed solely to maximise the profits of the seed
industry.
Half of the world’s population cannot afford to buy new seed every year
and typically depend on ‘saved seed’ and their skills to adapt a blend
of varieties to suit growing conditions. Reversing the moratorium would
enable the profit-seeking seed industry to enter completely “new
sectors of the seed market — especially in self-pollinating seeds such
as wheat, rice, cotton, soybeans, oats and sorghum”
(www.earthisland.org). Until recently agribusiness had paid scant
regard to crops grown in undeveloped countries, mainly because the
industry had been unable to control seed reproduction. Those advocating
sterile gene technology claim it could be a boon to undeveloped
countries because the corporations that have developed new and better
seed would then have the means of protecting their investment and could
concentrate on the development of seeds suited to undeveloped
countries, hitherto ignored, without having this investment undermined.
There can be little doubt that if Terminator is brought to market the
logic of profit will mean the multinational seed corporations will seek
to introduce genetic seed sterility into all genetically modified seeds
offered for sale. Within a short time this could mean that the world’s
two most important food crops – wheat and rice, on which three-quarters
of the world’s poorest people depend – would come under the control of
the seed monopolies. The notes to the first Terminator patent lodged by
Delta and Pine Land explained that the company intended to make its
technology widely available to competitors, but this was so as to
penetrate the market with Terminator seed as quickly as possible and
across as many varieties of crops as is feasible.
Investment follows profits and if the staple crops of the undeveloped
countries can be ‘tied up’ by Terminator, investment will pour into the
seed corporations commercially producing seed where market sales can be
guaranteed year on year. It can be no coincidence that the agricultural
chemical corporations including DuPont, Dow Corning, Novartis, AgroEvo,
and Monsanto have acquired major interests in the seed breeding
industry where the ten largest corporations control 40 percent of the
global seed market.
Not surprising
The UN Bangkok meeting did not, however, conclude in the way the seed
corporations had expected. Governments nurturing GM industries not as
advanced as those of the US and Canada intervened to thwart the
intentions of Canadian government and the multinational corporations.
We should not be surprised by the stance of the Canadian government
because it is the role of governments to act in the interest of the
class who live by profit and it is only doing what is wanted by its
masters. But even though the de facto moratorium remains intact the
Terminator issue is still on the negotiating table. It will be
discussed at the next UN Convention of Biodiversity in March 2006 and
the meeting of the G8 in Scotland later this year and every other
opportunity thereafter. The multinationals smell blood and have moved
up a gear to bring the ‘suicide seed’ to market.
It is unimaginable that in any sane society scientists in GM technology
would wish to identify and develop a terminator gene – only a society
motivated by profit could consider this worthwhile with no other
conceivable purpose than to boost profits to those who sell it. But
this is capitalism.
It is often claimed that science is neutral – being neither good nor
bad. This is an abstraction that ignores the social relations, the
social context in which science develops and fails to address the
question – ‘who benefits ’? Technology is almost always directed to the
maximisation of profit and frequently has a detrimental impact on the
environment or human well-being. With the pool of scientific knowledge
reputedly doubling every twelve months people tend to be intimidated by
‘science,’ with no choice but to place reliance on so-called ‘experts’
who generally conceal a vested interest when urging a particular
development. The real decisions that influence the world are made in
secret and because we live in a society where the interests of the
class that own the corporations and companies reign supreme, maximising
profits will always head the agenda.
The prudent application of GM technology could be of some benefit to
humanity and may be developed in socialism where food will be produced
simply to feed people and not for profit. But like so many other
scientific developments, the emergence of Terminator demonstrates that
certain areas of science can become extremely dangerous when left in
the hands of those whose only motivation is profit. In capitalism
profit will always prevail over human need and research will normally
be funded only into areas where profit can be maximised – regardless of
the consequences on human welfare and the planet on which we
depend.
STEVE TROTT
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Enough
for All
The Earth’s population is now just over 6 billion, and rising. However,
it is unlikely to just carry on increasing: with many now choosing to
have fewer children, the likelihood is that population will level off
around 2050, at around 10 billion (according to the best estimates of
UN demographers). Socialist society will of course have to feed these
billions, something that the present profit-based system is all too
plainly unable to do. As argued by Colin Tudge in So Shall We Reap
(Penguin 2004), it would not be at all difficult to feed even 10
billion, as long as agriculture were organised along sensible (his word
is ‘enlightened’) lines.
The total land area of the planet is about 12 billion hectares, but
only 1.3 billion hectares can currently be used as arable land. Even
with a population of 10 billion, this would mean 0.13 hectares per
person, or something over a third of an acre. If farmed by means of
intensive horticulture (e.g. for tomatoes, avocados, mushrooms), a plot
this size could feed dozens. But horticulture on a very large scale is
hardly practicable, and ordinary arable farming has to be the essential
basis for cultivating land. Proper mixtures of crops and livestock on
mixed farms are in fact the best approach.
The average yield in England is about eight tonnes of wheat per hectare
per year, enough to feed a couple of dozen people; so the 0.13 hectare
per person available once global population settles down would be
plenty to feed three or four. The conclusion of such calculations is
inescapable: even without genetically-modified crops, the Earth can
produce more than enough to feed likely future populations. Take
account of the fact that the area under cultivation might be doubled,
and fears of overpopulation and appalling famines seem to vanish. We
need not take on board all of Tudge’s ideas about food cultivation to
accept his general point that more than enough food could be produced
with current knowledge, resources and techniques, without a need for
new technological discoveries.
Wheat, rice and maize are the three most important crops, and they can
be produced in sufficient quantity to feed humanity, to ensure that
nobody dies of malnutrition and no child goes to bed crying of hunger.
A mixed diet of these cereals, together with fresh fruit and
vegetables, plus some meat and fish as individuals desire, is just what
the doctor (and the planet) ordered. To quote Tudge:
“when agriculture is expressly designed to feed people, all the
associated problems seem to solve themselves. In essence, feeding
people is easy.”
(We suspect that ‘easy’ here is an exaggeration — ‘straightforward’
seems a better choice of word.)
So why does it not happen now? Tudge’s answer is essentially the one
that Socialists would give: food is produced for profit, and those who
have no or very little money do not constitute a market. He identifies
the current capitalist model as monetarised, industrialised,
corporatised and globalised (MICG, for short). The interests of
corporations, treating agriculture as just another industry to be
milked for profits, take precedence over those of people, whether
workers in ‘advanced’ capitalism or peasants or farmers in ‘developing’
countries. Companies like McDonalds have an enormous, and increasing,
power over the livestock industry, a power they are now extending to
the fruit-growers too. Many producers of fruit and vegetables are at
the beck and call of the big supermarkets, forced to deliver the kind
of bland homogenous pap that these claim their customers want but that
in fact just provide bigger profits. And this mass-produced food is not
even good for you: Britain has over four million reported cases of food
poisoning a year, for instance.
Yet Tudge does not see the need for an alternative to capitalism. He
regards the Russian dictatorship as having been the antithesis of
capitalism (actually it was just another brand of capitalism), and
naturally concludes that that was no solution. Instead he wants to
replace the MICG version with ‘a different model of capitalism’, one
which apparently will have all the features of the current model but
none of the nasty side-effects. We need to be radical, he claims, but
not revolutionary. But alas, his proposals are just wishful thinking
within a profit-motivated system — as easily get an apple tree to grow
rice as get capitalism to change its nature.
Tudge quotes a small farmer from the US as saying, ‘I just want to farm
well. I don’t want to compete with anybody.’ This is a deceptively
simple but very profound statement. Why should the work of producing
food to keep people alive and satisfy their taste buds be a matter of
cut-throat competition? Why, indeed, should life in general be a matter
of competing with others and thereby being either a winner or a loser?
Competition may be fine on the football field or the badminton court,
but it is not the way to organise the production of food or anything
else. People can work together — with each other and with the planet on
which we all live — to make that work more pleasant and enjoyable and
to produce things, including food, that people really want. But to
achieve that will need a revolution in the way the world is organised.
Paul Bennett
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