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People
over profit
WTO and GMO in the context of food
security, - safety and sovereignty
Greenpeace
Germany (Stefan Flothmann, Jürgen Knirsch (1)), July
2001
Introduction
In the food context WTO and GMOs
share a common feature. Both promise economic profit for agricultural
industry and benefits for food security and food safety for
the global population at the same time. The neoliberal philosophy
of the WTO is based on the assumption that the elimination
of political control over enterprise will inevitably lead
to optimized production and thereby free trade and free investment
will automatically improve the living conditions for every
part of the global society. At the same time GMOs have been
promoted as a technical solution to combat hunger in the world.
If profit and food safety
go together that nicely, politicians feel relieved of the
burden to prioritize between the interests of business and
society. This makes the neoliberal philosophy very attractive
to governments. But what if these economic or technical theories
fail to achieve both objectives at the same time? At the World
Food Summit in Rome in 1996 governments committed themselves
to fight hunger in the world. As part of their action plan
they concluded:
"Food security exists
when all people, at all times, have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their
dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy
life. In this regard, concerted action at all levels is required.
Each nation must adopt a strategy consistent with its resources
and capacities to achieve its individual goals and, at the
same time, cooperate regionally and internationally in order
to organize collective solutions to global issues of food
security. In a world of increasingly interlinked institutions,
societies and economies, coordinated efforts and shared responsibilities
are essential".(2)
The action plan should
be interpreted as an international commitment that food security
should be seen as top priority and that even international
agreements including GATT and the WTO Agreement on Agriculture
have to be reconsidered, if they fail to meet this objective.
Food security
The origin of the neoliberal
theory goes back to the early years of the 19th
century. In 1817 David Ricardo wrote:
"Under a system of
perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its
capital and labor to such employment as are most beneficial
to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably
connected with the universal good of the whole."
Economic developments have
been influenced by this since then and it has been enshrined
into international policy in 1947 when the first GATT was
agreed. After so many years of experience it is time to evaluate
the truth of its assumption.
In the early 1960s the
Green Revolution dramatically changed agriculture around the
globe. New breeding techniques produced the so called miracle
seeds, which were high input varieties that increased food
production at the expense of an increased use of fertilizer
and pesticides. The Green Revolution therefore not only increased
food production but also dramatically enhanced the global
trade of agricultural inputs like pesticides and fertilizers.
Therefore the Green Revolution is a good test case to ascertain
if the combination of the introduction of a new agricultural
technology and the liberalization of trade would result in
the decrease of global hunger.
Between 1970 and 1990 global
exports of pesticides increased more than 10 times from 635
Mill US$ to 7.4 Bill US$, clearly showing that one assumption
of Ricardo, an increased profit, has been achieved during
this period. In the same period, global food supply per person
increased despite an eleven percent increase in global population,
thus showing that global food production could be increased.
But did this result in less hungry people? During this same
time the number of hungry people dropped sixteen percent,
from 942 to 786 Million. These often quoted global figures
of the FAO tend to support the neoliberal assumptions that
the Green Revolution along with an increasing international
trade in agrochemical products did translate into improved
global food security. But it is worth having a slightly closer
look at those figures. During this twenty year period, the
number of hungry people in China dropped from 406 to 189 Million
people, leaving the rest of the world in the sobering reality
that hungry people actually increased eleven percent, from
536 to 597 Million people. This only supports the conclusion,
that neither the Green nor the neoliberal revolution was responsible
for the global decrease of malnutrition. Rather it can be
surmised that the results were due to the agricultural policy
of the Chinese Revolution.
As hunger derives for the
most part from poverty, it is also interesting to analyze
the development of wealth. The last report of UNDP (United
Nations Development Program) shows that financial fortune
on our planet has increased 6 fold since 1950 but at the same
time the per capita income of 100 of the 174 registered countries
decreased dramatically.
Some developing countries
like South Korea or Taiwan did manage to improve food security
and reduce poverty in their countries within the last 50 years.
But both countries achieved this improvement, not by opening
but by strictly regulating their markets. Even Joseph Stiglitz,
the former chief economist of the World Bank, acknowledged
that South East Asia is the area that most effectively reduced
poverty. The economic crisis that accrued in 1997, he assumed,
was most likely a result of abandoning the strategies that
had achieved the economic miracle, such as the control of
the financial markets.(3)
On the other hand countries
that have been praised as models for neoliberal strategy and
who did not regulate their markets, such as Mexico or Brazil,
saw the fortunes of the rich minorities massively increase
while the conditions of life deteriorated for the poor.(4)
All of this does not come as a surprise if one considers the
US and European government support for trade protectionism.
The preference for free trade only developed after their industies
had been build up to a strength that was globally dominant.
But even within the industrialized world, countries in the
front line of neoliberal economies are also leading the score
of poverty and hunger. In the USA in 1991 more than 12 Million
children suffered from hunger, more than in any other industrialized
country in the world.(5)
There are two ways to interpret
the history of neoliberal strategies and food security. One
is that David Ricardo, Adam Smith and all the other economists
who promoted Neoliberalism were wrong. Actually, there is
an increasing number of economists who are challenging the
neoliberal theory as defective. On the other hand one has
to acknowledge that free trade today is a rhetorical argument
from a couple of countries to stimulate market access for
some of their industries while at the same time maintaining
protectionism for others.
One example is the European
agricultural policy. A farmer from Madagascar, one of the
48 least developed countries (LDC) in the world, will fail
to sell his sugar in any European country although the production
of sugar from sugar cane is much cheaper than that from European
sugar beet. This is because the farmer has to pay duties that
eliminate this production advantage. However even though the
EU passed the "Everything but arms" legislation
in 2001 to support the development of LDCs by eliminating
such duties, the European sugar industry managed to get a
derogation so that duties on sugar will not be eliminated
before 2009. Farmers from other developing countries will
face similar trade barriers even after this date.
Since poverty is the prime
cause of hunger, and thus hunger is closely related to economic
strategies, governments have to face the fact that GATT and
the Agreement on Agriculture is not working to reduce poverty.
If governments want to be taken seriously, their only way
to achieve their objectives laid down in the World Food Summit
Action Plan is to change global economic structures. This
year’s WTO round in Doha (Qatar) and the World Food Summit
Plus 5 in November will be a great opportunity to do so.
GMOs and Food security
It has to be expected that food
security will not be a hot issue in Doha, but governments
are expected to talk about the establishment of a GMO working
group. Even at this Food Summit governments are probably going
to fail to address global economic changes. Rather they will
most likely concentrate on production technologies, such as
genetic engineering. This diversion away from the real issue
comes as no surprise, even though proponents of genetic engineering
such as Steve Smith, of Novartis Seeds, acknowledge that genetic
engineering is not going to feed the world. Even in the northern
hemisphere, public discussion and media attention fail to
cover the root cause of hunger preferring to dwell on the
potential of new technologies rather than old problems. This
issue of world hunger is eagerly taken up by the GE industry
who, faced with decreasing consumer confidence, needs a new
legitimization of their products.
But is genetic engineering
able to combat hunger? Looking at the few countries that have
introduced GMOs into their agriculture, like the USA or Argentina,
one has to conclude that the introduction of GMOs has had
no effect on reducing hunger in these countries. One could
argue that this comes as no surprise, since genetically engineered
seeds were not produced to combat hunger, but to rationalize
agriculture. Similar to the medical sector of biotechnology,
the agricultural branch of the industry shifted their focus
to the elaboration of hope in the future, while omitting how
long these promises would take to be realized – if ever. Seeds
of hope like drought or salt resistant plants or vitamin A
rice are used to convince the northern public that it is unethical
to object to the development of genetic engineering in plant
breeding.
In Spring 2000 Dr. Dubrock of Astra-Zeneca accused government
officials of being culpable for thousands of blind children,
if the authorization for Golden Rice were delayed. Looking
at the facts, the Golden Rice is far from being commercialized.
While its development is a scientific advance, it has not
yet been proven to alleviate vitamin A deficiencies in the
developing world. There has been no study on the bioavailability
for humans, nor any biosafety and agricultural research on
its performance in a tropical environment. Up until now only
small quantities of this rice have been grown in Swiss greenhouses.
Even if the entire amount of vitamin A would be bioavailable,
an average person would have to consume more than 9 kg of
cooked rice a day to supply the daily vitamin A need. Still
the GE-proponents manage to sell the Golden Rice solution
to the media, while development projects that are solving
vitamin A deficiency by reintroducing the cultivation of legumes
in rice cultivation, are not covered by the media.
A recent study by the University
of Essex (6) has revealed that communities in the South have
managed to improve food security with sustainable methods.
By introducing new crops or improving the use of their assets
like water and soil, the food security of these communities
can be improved tremendously. Common to all projects is the
approach of capital building. To achieve a sustainable production
of food, and thus food security not only for the present but
also for future generations, one has to understand that the
available assets have to be increased. These include biological
capital building, such as an increase in soil fertility and
water retention, as well as social capital building, such
as the improvement of social structures and education. This
approach was unfortunately entirely neglected by the Green
Revolution, resulting in a massive degradation of soils and
the bankruptcy of small scale farmers around the world.
The overrating of the new generation of miracle seeds, could
easily lead to a similar situation to sacrifice sustainability,
human health and the environmental for a short term technological
fix. Why then is sustainable agriculture not promoted in the
same way that genetic engineering is? The scientists at the
University of Essex give one striking reason: the agrochemical
industry would be a loser in the world of true sustainable
agriculture. Therefore it seems logical that agrochemical
companies, as well as countries that aim to support the expansion
of their chemical industry, will oppose sustainable agriculture
and promote genetic engineering to develop new markets and
gain even more control over global food markets.
Food safety
After seeing that GATT and the
Agreement on Agriculture fails to improve food security in
the South we need to assess its ability to secure food safety
in the North. Within the set of regulations within the WTO,
the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement, also called
SPS Agreement, is the one responsible for achieving food safety
within the limits of free trade. As explained by the WTO publication:(7)
"..[the SPS Agreement]
allows countries to set their own standards. But it also says
regulations must be based on science. They should be applied
only to the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant
life or health. And they should not arbitrarily or unjustifiably
discriminate between countries where identical or similar
conditions prevail. Member countries are encouraged to use
international standards, guidelines or recommendations where
they exist...."
This definition explains
that the SPS Agreement has no objective to increase food safety
but a rather limited scope not to sacrifice food safety for
the objective of free trade. This should be achieved by the
use of sound science, or even more precisely by the use of
risk assessments. The development of international standards
is referred to as the Codex Alimentarius Commission of FAO
and WHO.
The question is if risk
assessment is sufficient to achieve food safety? What is a
safe food product? A product that has been scientifically
tested and demonstrated none of the negative effects that
scientists looked for? A product that showed no negative impact
on animals or humans after a 10 year period? Or a food product
that is substantially equivalent to another known safe food
product? We tend to agree that a product which fulfils one
of the above criteria should be safe. One product that did
qualify for all three criteria was the meat from bone meal
fed cattle. This product is responsible for one of the most
serious food borne diseases of our generation BSE/CFJ. BSE
shows that risk assessment is insufficient to protect consumers
from hazardous practice in food production. What is needed
is a precautionary approach to food production. This approach
is most easily defined by the principle "If you doubt,
keep it out". But what is a reason for doubt?
Learning from the BSE crisis, government and consumers should
worry if new technologies violate basic natural principles.
In the case of BSE a herbivore was not only forced to feed
on animal products but to cannibalize. This practice should
have been questioned, even though it was highly economical.
We also know from the introduction of chemicals like DDT or
Lindane into food production, that substances which are persistent
or bioaccumulative are dangerous. Genetically engineered species
qualify for both these criteria. Genetic engineering is a
fundamental violation of natural principles, as the technique
allows the transfer of genes between animals and plants or
humans and bacteria, thus crossing species barriers. And,
GMOs released in the environment could not only be persistent
but could even proliferate.
As the SPS-Agreement does
not adequately address the precautionary principle it has
to be concluded that after the BSE experience, this part of
WTO legislation is outdated and one can only hope for the
sake of the health of consumers in the North and in the South,
that governments abandon their idea to establish a GMO working
group at the WTO. The WTO Working Group on Biotechnology was
one of the focal points of public opposition during the negotiations
in Seattle and it will not find more acceptance when tabled
again in Qatar this year. The Biosafety protocol is the better
agreement to handle genetically engineered crops and consumer
products, even if its primary focus is the protection of the
environment. The WTO on the other hand should use its time
in Qatar to revise the SPS-Agreement.
Consumer Choice
There is another component to
risk that has not been addressed either by the WTO or by the
Codex Alimentarius. Risk is an individual term! Scientific
advances in genomics and on allergies give a clear picture
that susceptibility to environmental parameters differs significantly
between different persons. As long as scientists or governments
can not rule out hazards to some members of the public, they
have to give consumers the chance to apply stricter measures
themselves. Thus, a clear labeling scheme is necessary for
modern risk management in food production.
Also the choice of food
is a central element of democratic rights. Food is not only
nutrition, but the choice of food is affected by cultural,
ethical and life-style considerations. Just as Moslems should
be given the opportunity to avoid pork, concerned consumers
should have the opportunitz to avoid meat from factory farming
or genetically engineered food, even if the motivation is
not personal risk avoidance but the protection of the environment
or general ethical concerns.
Since 1985 the United Nations
adopted Guidelines for Consumer Protection that addressed
not only food security and safety but also the right to be
informed and the right to choose. These guideline were expanded
in 1999.(8) To implement these basic consumer rights in genetically
engineered food, the producers of this food have to guarantee
three things, segregation of crops, traceability throughout
the production line and labeling. But since the USA has introduced
genetically engineered crops, the US government has opposed
any attempts by importing countries to guarantee these fundamental
rights to consumers.
At the Codex Alimentarius meetings on labeling there is no
progress because the USA, together with some other major agricultural
export countries, is blocking any attempt to agree on a labeling
standard. In contrary they are threatening the EU to file
an objection at the WTO against their labeling legislation.
The Bush administration just recently confirmed the direction
of the Clinton administration, when Ann Veneman, U.S. Agriculture
Secretary, criticized the EU attempt to revise the EU labeling
legislation threatening "I think an action under the SPS Agreement
is an option if we don't get results that are acceptable over
time."(9)
But times are changing.
The global public finally became aware of the threat that
WTO regulations could pose to their democratic rights. The
global opposition against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
(MAI) and the WTO meeting in Seattle is the first signal of
this opposition. Also the dispute over labeling of GMOs is
no longer restricted to Europe and the US. Recently a number
of countries outside the EU implemented or decided to develop
labeling legislation including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia,
Republic of Korea, Latvia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Mexico,
Hong Kong, Israel, Taiwan, Thailand and China. Other countries
go even further. Algeria and Sri Lanka banned all imports
of GMOs and Paraguay banned the use of GMOs in the agricultural
sector. Thus it has to be assumed that a WTO action against
labeling legislation would not only lead to conflicts between
WTO member states, but also to a large scale public outrage,
putting not only GMOs but also the WTO under question.
Control over food production
Global food production has been
massively concentrated during the last decades. High input
agriculture has pushed small scale farmers round the world
out of business and trade and liberalization has ruined national
food production in various developing countries that could
not cope with cheap imports. In 1981 Haiti, led by USAID,
change its agriculture to an export oriented economy. This
led to increased land use for export production thereby eliminating
the potential of the country to supply its population with
basic food needs. At the same time the country was swept by
cheap rice imports originating from highly subsidized intensive
farming in the US, which strangled small scale rice production
in Haiti. Within a couple of years self-sufficiency in rice
production was lost resulting in economic enslavement to the
US. This economic reform also increased the income of foreign
investors and a small domestic elite, while poverty increased
for the majority of the population.(4)
In their attempt
to expand their control over food production and the agricultural
germ-plasm, the agrochemical industry, now leaders in genetic
engineering, bought seed companies around the world. This
lead to a further concentration of food production. In 1998
the five gene-giants DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis (now Syngenta),
Aventis and Astra Zeneca (now Syngenta) had already controlled
over 23% of the global Seed market. Ten years before none
of them was part of the Top 10 world seed companies. The same
year these same five companies already controlled 60% of the
global pesticide market.
The vision of these companies was clearly expressed by Heinz
Imhof head of Novartis agriculture business. "Mr Imhof
is even more upbeat about closed loop accords where Syngenta
would act as a general contractor for retailers or food processors.
In that model, Syngenta would recruit growers and establish
detailed protocols stipulating everything from color and taste
of crops or vegetables and special properties desired for
successful transport over long distances, to guarantees on
maximum residue levels from pesticides."(10) A coalition
of multinational agrochemical and food production/retailing
companies is aiming to take over the control of food production
thereby transforming farmers to franchisers of their global
business.
On top of this the biotech
companies and their supportive governments in the industrialized
world are expanding their control with patent legislation
on plants and animals. While genetic engineering is used to
legitimate novelty, patent applications reach far beyond the
crops produced by this technology. A patent by DuPont, recently
granted by the European and the US patent office gives a clear
example. On the basis of a genetically engineered maize variety,
the US company filed patent WO 95/22598 on all maize varieties
that exceed a certain level of oil and fatty acids. This patent
not only includes all newly bred maize that would fulfil these
criteria, but research has revealed that there are old varieties
in Latin America that already exceed the oil and fatty acid
levels defined. This is a clear act of Bio-Piracy. Once Greenpeace
revealed the patent and initiated legal action the Mexican
Government also decided to take legal action against the patent
application.
Up until now most of the
developing countries only have pay royalties if they want
to export their agricultural products. In the absence of national
Intellectual property right (IPR) legislation, those patents
do not apply if the crop is sold for domestic markets. This
could change dramatically, if the WTO’s Agreement on Trade
Related Aspects of property rights (TRIPs) would be expanded
to plants and animals. To protect the interests of American
agricultural industry in the developing world, the US government
is using this WTO legislation to press governments in the
developing world to implement IPR legislation that would expand
the reach of these patents into the South.
Patents, in combination
with diminishing public sector funding for agricultural research,
serves to increase the oligopoly of companies in the development
of new crop varieties. Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, the
inventors of the Vitamin A enriched rice, sold ten years of
public research to Syngenta. They felt incapable of handling
the implications of over seventy different patents which covered
the genetically engineered rice. Also they felt that the public
sector lacked the capacity to test and commercialize new products.
This alarming example demonstrates that food production is
going down the same road that the health system did. Patents
and the associated research and development costs put the
production of new drugs entirely under cooperate control.
The outcome of this is that pharmaceutical progress is focused
on solutions that can be bought by rich industrialized societies
while the world’s poor is neglected.
Therefore the International
Farmers Association, Via Campesina, at the Food Summit 1996
introduced the concept of Food Sovereignty as the necessary
approach to food security and safety: Food sovereignty by
their definition is "the right of each nation to maintain
and develop its own capacity to produce its basic foods respecting
cultural and productive diversity."
This year at the World
Food Summit Plus 5, governments will have to admit that they
failed to achieve their commitment to reduce hunger by 50%.
Governments should strongly endorse the myriad diverse approaches
to sustainable agriculture around the globe. To achieve true
food security they must not support the economic interests
of agrochemical and GE companies which exert destructive effects
on the development of these traditional and innovative systems.
Either food related issues have to be expelled from the WTO
or this global trade legislation has to be reformed to achieve
real food sovereignty. By doing so, food security will improve
without taking the risk of introducing yet another unsustainable
technology, like genetic engineering, to defeat world hunger.
References:
1.
Stefan Flothmann and Jürgen Knirsch are with Greenpeace Germany.
Stefan Flothmann is head of the Genetic Engineering, Toxics
and Agriculture Department and Jürgen Knirsch is expert of
WTO related issues.
2. The documents of the
Food Summit can be found at http://www.fao.org/wfs/final/rd-e.htm.
3. Joseph Stiglitz, (1998)
Annual World Bank Conference on Developing Economics 1997,
Wider Annual Lectures 2.
4. Noam Chromsky (1999)
Profit over People. Neoliberalism and Global Order. Seven
Stories Press New York
5. Noam Chromsky (1994) The Balance Sheet. World Orders Old
and New. Pluto Press.
6. Pretty J and Hine R. (2001) Reducing Food Poverty with
Sustainable Agriculture: A Summary of New Evidence. Final
Report from the SAFE-World Research Project, Feb 2001. University
of Essex, Colchester http://www2.essex.ac.uk/ces/ResearchProgrammes/CESOccasionalPapers/SAFErepSUBHEADS.htm
7. The WTO Agreement Series 4, Sanitary & Pytosanitary Measures,
World Trade Organisation 1998
8. United Nations Resolution 1999/7. Economic and Social Council,
2nd plenary meeting 26 July 1999- Expansion of the United
Nations guidelines on consumer protection to include sustainable
consumption.
9. U.S. Protests New EU Biotech Rules; Says They May Violate
WTO Agreement. WTO Reporter, June 4, 2001, ISSN 1529-4153,
10. Wall Street Journal Europe 18/09/2000
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