9. Who is in control?

The genetic engineering industry is dominated by a handful of multinational corporations, with interests in food, chemicals and seeds.

"The common denominator of our business is biology. The research and technology is applied to discover, develop and sell products that have an effect on biological systems, be they human beings, plants or animals."

• In December 1998, Germany's Hoechst and France's Rhône-Poulenc merged to form Aventis, "the world's biggest life science company", with combined sales of $20 billion per annum.(3)

 
• Days later, UK-based Zeneca Group PLC and Astra AB of Sweden announced the largest-ever European merger. At more than $70 billion, the combined assets of the new company was larger than the 1997 gross national product of 93 countries. (4)

 
• In March 1999, DuPont announced that it would pay $7.7 billion to buy the remaining 80 per cent stake in Pioneer Hi-Bred International, the world's largest seed company.(5)

 
• Between 1996 and 1998, Monsanto spent $8 billion on new acquisitions, incorporating seed companies, genetic engineering companies and other related interests.(6) However, faced with huge debts and a plummeting stock value, Monsanto was soon forced to find a way to protect its pharmaceuticals business from being adversely affected by the growing opposition to GE foods. In December 1999, it announced that it was to join its pharmaceutical wing with Pharmacia-Upjohn in a $27 billion merger; Monsanto's agricultural wing was now to become a separate legal entity with 80 per cent of the stock held by the fused enterprise.

 
• Other life science companies have acted similarly to protect their pharmaceutical businesses. In November 1999, Novartis announced that it was to spin-off its huge agricultural biotech division in a new venture with most of Astra-Zeneca's agrochemical and seeds activities, forming a new company called Syngenta.(7)

The acquisition of seed companies is an integral feature of the consolidation underway within the genetic engineering industry. It has led to the virtual demise of much of the independent seed industry in industrialised countries (8), and near monopolies which now help to guarantee markets for new genetically engineered crops. This, together with sweeping patents and contractual agreements with farmers, grain elevators and processing companies, means that the life science industry is increasingly in control of the food supply all the way from the laboratory to the dinner plate.

• In November 1998, Cargill, the world's biggest grain exporter, announced a merger that would allow it to control 45 per cent of the global grain trade.(9)

 
• 40 per cent of US vegetable seeds come from a single source.(10) The top five vegetable seed companies control 75 per cent of the global vegetable seed market.(11)

 
• By 1999, Delta and Pine Land Co, joint holders with the USDA of the patent on Terminator technology, controlled over 70 per cent of the US cottonseed market.(12)

"This is not just a consolidation of seed companies; it's really a consolidation of the entire food chain."

In a document leaked to Greenpeace, PR firm Burson Marsteller demonstrated its confidence in the proactive stance of national governments. Burson Marsteller advised EuropaBio (a consortium of GE companies with interests in Europe) to refrain from partaking in any public debate and leave it to "those charged with public trust, politicians and regulators, to assure the public that biotech products are safe."(14)

The European Commission, for one, has been most obliging, allocating millions of pounds of public money to projects designed to persuade people of the benefits of genetic engineering. The 'FACTT' project, for example, has been granted UK £1 million (with a similar amount being contributed by the industry) to promote the sales of genetically engineered oilseed rape. It aims to bring about "the creation of familiarity with and acceptance of transgenic crops for farmers, extension organisations, processing industry, regulatory organisations, consumer groups and public interest groups."(15)

In the US, the government has been criticised for 'revolving doors' between the White House and the genetic engineering industry. Many of the people now sitting on key regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration have strong links to the very corporations they are supposed to be regulating.(16)
 

References

1. Quoted in David Pilling (9 December 2001) The Facts of Life: Chemical and Pharmaceutical Companies see their future in biological innovation. Financial Times, p. 21.
2. RAFI (26 November 1999) Seedless in Seattle. News release, 26 November 1999
3. RAFI (1999) The Gene Giants: Masters of the Universe? Communiqué
4. RAFI (1999) op cit.
Figures on the size of national economies comes from the World Bank's World Development Report (1998/99). World Bank, Oxford University Press, Table 1, p. 190-1
5. RAFI (1999) op cit.
6. RAFI (1999) op cit.
7. RAFI (21 December 1999) RAFI on Monsanto merger: Pharma-gedon. <www.rafi.org> (as of April 2001)
8. Union of Concerned Scientists (1998) From the Editor's Desk: big and bigger. The Gene Exchange: a public voice on biotechnology and agriculture, <www.ucsusa.org/Gene/su98.big.html> (as of April 2001)
9. US National Farmers Union (26 January 1999) Action needed to halt consolidation in the agricultural industry. News release. Cited in: RAFI (1999) The Gene Giants: Masters of the Universe? Communiqué
10. Friedland J. and Kilman S. (28 January 1999) As geneticists develop an appetite for greens, Mr. Romo flourishes. Wall St. Journal
11. Grooms L. (January 1999) With merger completed, Harris Moran focuses on future. Seed & Crops Digest
12. Personal communication to Luke Anderson from Hope Shand. Rural Advancement Foundation International, 5 January 2000
13. R. Fraley, in Farm Journal. Quoted in: Flint J. (1998) Agricultural industry giants moving towards genetic monopolism. Telepolis, Heise Online <www01.ix.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2385/1.html> (as of April 2001)
14. Burson Marsteller (January 1997) Communications Programmes for EuropaBio
15. FACCT: A project to promote Familiarisation with and Acceptance of Crops incorporating Transgenic Technologies in modern agriculture. A demonstration project under Framework Programme IV-European Commission. Paper OCS 8/96, Annex D & Draft Technical Annex-19 December 1995.
16. A report put out by the Edmonds Institute and the Third World Network contained the following details about senior posts in the biotech industry and the US government:
- David W. Beier - former head of Government Affairs for Genentech, Inc., now chief domestic policy advisor to Al Gore, Vice-President of the United States.
- Linda J. Fisher - former Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, now Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.
- L. Val Gidings - former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS), now Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation (BIO)
- Marcia Hale - former assistant to the President of the United States and director for intergovernmental affairs, now Director of International Government Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.
- Michael (Mickey) Kantor - former Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce and former Trade Representative of the United States, now member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.
- Josh King - former director of production for White House events, now director of global communication in the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.
- Terry Medley - former administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair of the United States Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council, former member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food advisory committee, and now Director of Regulatory and External Affairs of DuPont Corporation's Agricultural Enterprise.
- Margaret Miller - former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).*
- William D. Ruckelshaus - former chief administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), now (and for the past 12 years) a member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.
- Michael Taylor - former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA, still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company, still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, and now again with the law firm of King & Spaulding.*
- Lidia Watrud - former microbial biotechnology researcher at Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, now with the United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Effects Laboratory, Western Ecology Division.
- Clayton K. Yeutter - former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade Representative (who led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations), now a member of the board of directors of Mycogen Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.
*Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA "primary reviewer for all rBST and other dairy drug production applications" ) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office investigation in 1994 for their role in FDA's approval of Posilac, Monsanto's formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone. The GAO Office found "no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug's approval" and only "one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations". (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).
 

next I food intro