10.06.1999

Prince of fools

Biotechnology is expected to be the leading science of the 21st century. But in Britain the introduction of genetically modified (GM) food for human consumption continues to be strongly opposed by consumers, influenced by green pressure groups, left reformists and conservative newspapers, especially the Daily Mail. Opponents of GM food hope this public opposition may persuade the government to change its line: “Several Labour MPs have warned party whips that they are receiving a stream of complaints from the public about the government’s strong support for the industry” (The Independent June 7). As a result the government appears to be giving ground.

This week a farm-size trial of the environmental impact of GM crops was aborted when transgenic oilseed rape plants covering 25 acres on a mixed farm in Wiltshire were destroyed under pressure from the Soil Association, a lobbying group which promotes organic farming. Citing the danger of cross-pollination with the genetically modified plants, they had threatened to withdraw recognition from 250 acres of organically certified crops being grown on the same farm, which would have cost the farm owners at least £50,000 in lost sales because of the higher prices consumers are willing to pay for organically certified produce.

On June 1 the Daily Mail, which has been campaigning against GM food for several months, published “an all-out challenge to the government claims that genetically modified food is safe” by the Prince of Wales, a keen amateur organic farmer with links with the Soil Association. The following day The Independent reported that the prince had five weeks earlier had a “stand-up row” with prime minister Tony Blair over the issue.

Blair reacts with anger to opposition to GM technology from Prince Charles or anyone else. His view, voiced in an interview on the BBC’s ‘Breakfast with Frost’ TV programme on June 6, is that GM technology should be welcomed, because if it is not developed by British companies it will be developed elsewhere, and British industry will lose out. “Mr Blair insisted that banning GM foods would risk throwing away Britain’s lead over other countries in biotechnology, at a time when Germany was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on catching up” (The Independent June 7). Blair and his government see their role as defending British capitalism, including, in the case of the biotech industry, by helping it to persuade the public to drop their opposition to its products.

All this neatly illustrates the formal nature of bourgeois democracy. People have power as electors. Every five years they choose who will misrepresent them. But people are atomised. They have no positive control over society. Ironically that applies above as well as below. Capitalist politicians insist that ‘there is no alternative’ other than obeying the iron law of the market. Mainstream politicians therefore vie with one another in terms of what serves the interests of capital. However, with Labour now openly onside, the Conservatives are in crisis. The Tories are retreating from being the party of big capital and are rearticulating themselves - almost by default - as a party of insular and medium capital, an English nationalist party, and a party which promotes and appeals to irrationality on everything from the European Union to GM food.

This is obviously the approach of the Daily Mail, which on the subject of GM food not only appears to have the agreement of Prince Charles, but also of much the population.

“In June 1998, a MORI poll in the UK revealed that 58% of the people surveyed were opposed to the genetic engineering of food - seven per cent more than in an identical poll two years before. Support for genetic engineering had fallen from 31% to 22%. Sixty-one percent said they did not want to eat GE food, 73% were concerned that GE crops could interbreed with wild plants and cause genetic pollution, and 77% wanted a ban on growing until the impacts of GE crops had been more fully assessed” (quoted by L Anderson Genetic engineering, food, and our environment, a brief guide p88).

New technologies often initially provoke fear, hostility and super-profits. It seems unlikely therefore that the advance of the science of genetic engineering or its commercial exploitation can be stopped, either by Prince Charles, or by Greenpeace and the Soil Association, or even by consumer resistance to buying GM food, which resistance the biotech companies and their advertising advisors will work hard to overcome. Nevertheless, opinion polls consistently show that people want products containing genetically modified ingredients to be clearly labelled as such, so as consumers they can choose to avoid all GM products.

As communists we obviously support this democratic right to choose. The biotech industry itself does not. One of the largest companies is the US giant, Monsanto, which exports GM soyabeans from the US to Europe. In 1994 Monsanto successfully applied to the regulatory authorities for permission to treat the GM soya as “substantially equivalent” to the unmodified variety, and mixed the GM product with the rest of the crop for export. The company has always refused to segregate the GM product, and as protein and lecithin derived from soya is a widely used additive in the food processing industry, most convenience food can be assumed to contain genetically modified elements.

Such is the public opposition to GM food - irrational or otherwise - that despite this pervasive presence of GM soya, supermarket chains are going to great lengths to eliminate GM ingredients from their products and are keen to advertise their GM-free status. Waitrose, for example, distributed in its stores a leaflet reassuring customers that; “We do not sell any genetically modified foods as such (for example, tomatoes or tomato puree). Waitrose own-label foods do not contain any modified ingredients.” The company also maintains that:

“Having replaced soya and maize with alternatives or obtained it from suppliers who can be confident of their sources, no Waitrose own-label products (including pet foods) now contain GM ingredients.”

Retrospectively “Waitrose regrets that the introduction of GM products into the UK took place without more consultation, especially of the views of retailers and our customers” (Waitrose customer information leaflet, March 1999). In other words, appealing to irrationality has its rationale - the bottom line is profit.

Many consumers seeking to avoid GM food regard it as an ethical question, and wish to shun GM food in the same way that some may wish to buy free-range eggs or organic vegetables. Again, we fully support that democratic right, even if it turns out that after all GM food is completely safe. For others it is a more pragmatic question. Especially in the light of the BSE scandal, they do not trust the assurances of either the biotech companies or the government. There are some grounds for suspecting risks with GM food, but rather than investigate them fully and with absolute openness Monsanto and its like are concerned above all to increase their sales and thus returns.

During the process of genetic modification, the gene for the desired characteristic is extracted from the DNA of the source organism and spliced into plasmid vectors which are then introduced into the cells of the recipient organism (usually a plant), either by bacterial infection or bombardment with tiny metal pellets coated with the DNA to be transferred. As the rate of successful incorporation of the foreign genetic material into the host DNA is so low, a gene for resistance to an antibiotic - for example, streptothricin - is also incorporated onto the plasmid, and the cells which have been subjected to the engineering process are incubated in a growth medium containing the antibiotic. Therefore only those cells containing the desired gene can survive, but when they are grown into mature plants they contain the gene for resistance to the antibiotic. This resistance gene may be transferred by natural processes to bacteria, including the gut bacteria of people eating the GM crops. The problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics would thus be made worse.

Many people are already concerned about pesticide residues in food. Most genetic modification of crop plants involves incorporating a gene for resistance to a specific herbicide. For example, the GM oilseed rape destroyed this week in Wiltshire had been engineered to tolerate high levels of the herbicide, glufosinate, manufactured by the German agri-business company, AgrEvo, which also produced the GM seeds. Similarly, Monsanto sells farmers in the USA and elsewhere GM oilseed rape and soya engineered to withstand its own glycophosate-based herbicide, Roundup. Because GM crops can survive spraying with high levels of herbicides, they might contain higher levels of residues than unmodified plants. Monsanto successfully applied to the regulatory authorities for the permitted level of herbicide residue in GM soya to be increased from six parts per million to 20 parts per million.

The case against GM food seems strong. Many will agree with Charles Windsor that it is not needed. Even some research scientists working in the field and employed by the biotech companies have risked their jobs by going public with their fears about the speed with which the new technology is being introduced - an interesting parallel with the reservations expressed by scientists developing nuclear technology 40 to 50 years ago.

However, unlike the Greens we do not call for GM food to be banned. Genetic modification is not a bad thing in itself. Like most technological advances, genetic engineering has the potential either to provide great benefits to humanity or to do much harm, depending on how it is used and who controls it.

It is not the science of genetic engineering which the public should oppose, but the lack of democracy and a capitalist system which misuses this and other technologies, perverting everything into a search for profits. The biotech industry claims that GM crops could be made with higher yields or drought or frost resistance, helping to feed the world. Yet today it is capitalism, especially its wars, not food shortages as such, which lead to famines. But the process of genetic modification does indeed have the potential to produce crops with higher yields and better nutritional value.

However, companies like Monsanto do not develop such crops: they find herbicide-resistant crops, sold in conjunction with the herbicide, more profitable. Their attitude to farmers is shown by the contracts the latter are obliged to sign when purchasing GM seeds, banning them from saving seeds produced by the crop for planting the following year. In ‘third world’ countries, where such a legal sanction would be harder to police and enforce, biotech companies are now starting to sell farmers seeds genetically modified to produce no viable offspring, so the farmer is forced to buy fresh seeds every year. This benefits no one but the biotech company, and ensures the complete dependence of the farmers.

This hold of biotech companies over farmers, including in the ‘third world’, is a natural continuation of the so-called green revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Yields and food production were increased by the replacement of traditional methods and crop varieties by a few high yielding, but fertiliser-dependent varieties. Both seeds and fertiliser were sold to the farmers by agrochemical companies. This represented nothing less than the spread of capitalism into all aspects of agriculture throughout the world.

Despite what Prince Charles and other enthusiasts for organic farming may wish, the world cannot go back to pre-capitalist farming methods. Firstly, such attempts could not compete in the world market with capitalistic food production, and secondly, even if they could, traditional methods could no longer provide enough food for the world’s population.

The answer lies in bringing GM technology under social control, so that the advances of science and technology, and the whole of the process of production, are genuinely used for the satisfaction of human needs, rather than for profits.

Mary Godwin