An excellent response to a recent article - U.S. Holy See Embassy Wades Into GM Crops Debate - posted on the website of the National Catholic Register.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7151

The authors are Elisabet Lopez, the Environment Advocacy Co-ordinator of Progressio - formerly known as the Catholic Institute for International Relations - and Father Sean McDonagh, a Columban Missionary.

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It seems that the US Embassy to the Holy See is continuing its efforts to get the Vatican's endorsement of GM crops as a key element in addressing world hunger and poverty.

In his article, posted on the National Catholic Register website on 25 October, Edward Pentin writes that "as part of its ongoing efforts to stimulate debate", the US Embassy to the Holy See invited three American professors to Rome from 5 to 6 Oct to present eight years of research on genetically modified (GM) crops and their effects on farmers, industry and the environment.

Debate usually involves opposing or at least diverse viewpoints, but the US Embassy to the Holy See did not seek the views of farmers and scientists who contend that GM crops present more socio-economic and environmental threats than solutions. Such farmers and scientists would like support to be channelled into low-cost sustainable agricultural technologies that have been shown to work and benefit farmers, not agribusiness corporations.

In his article Pentin mentions that the professors' visit was timely because it happened shortly after "a network of Christian and environmentalists groups spearheaded a campaign warning of 'Terminator technology'". It is important to note that the World Council of Churches (WCC) - with a membership of over 340 churches and denominations representing 560 million Christians in more than 110 countries - is in agreement with this campaign. Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the WCC, says: "Applying technology to design sterile seeds turns life, which is a gift from God, into a commodity. Preventing farmers from re-planting saved seed will increase economic injustice all over the world and add to the burdens of those already living in hardship".

Pentin's article says that GM crops have reduced pesticide spraying but does not provide details of the peer-reviewed research backing these assertions. In fact, according to Dr Charles Benbrook, empirical evidence demonstrates that, contrary to the biotechnology industry's claims, GM crops do not require fewer herbicides and pesticides. This is hardly surprising, since the most common GM crops in cultivation today are those that are resistant to proprietary brands of herbicide. This means that you can dose your crop with herbicide in order to kill weeds and the crop will not be affected: hardly an incentive for sustainable use of pesticides.

Pentin writes that what gave value to the professors' findings is the neutrality of their arguments. It is not possible for readers to judge this as only one of the professor's names is given, and incidentally he works for an organisation that receives funding from the biotech corporation Monsanto.

According to these professors, the claims by "anti-GMO campaigners" that multinationals aim to make farmers dependent on their seeds, are "paternalistic" because they imply that farmers are not clever enough to make their own decisions. However, it is a fact that farmers with limited resources often face political and economic pressures from seed companies and government authorities that can limit their choices. There are plenty of examples of the immense political pressure put on developing countries to accept genetically modified seeds. Programmes aimed at conserving and reviving native seeds are mostly supported by NGOs rather than national governments.

Pentin writes that "Particularly frustrating for Prof Kent is that his organisation has teamed up with Monsanto to offer free modified seeds to poor farmers, but many African governments won't look at them". Is it not then "paternalistic" to claim to know better than these governments who are exercising their right to say "No" to GM crops? Moreover, giving a product for free is a widespread promotional practice used in marketing that is not intended to last and that is aimed at creating dependency. Poverty will be reduced not by giving products for free, but by empowering communities to produce these things themselves to increase their autonomy and reduce their corporate dependency.

According to Pentin, "the professors also accused their opponents of spreading myths about damage caused to the environment by biotech crops". These are not myths. According to research by Genewatch UK and Greenpeace in March 2006, there have been cases of GM contamination in 39 countries; twice as many countries as officially permit the growing of GM crops. In 2004 the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which manages approximately 600,000 seed samples, warned that the probability of genebank collections becoming contaminated was high for maize and rapeseed, and medium for rice and cotton. Its report recommended immediate action. In 2001, research by Berkeley University revealed that local Mexican maize varieties had been contaminated by commercial transgenic varieties of maize from the United States, even though at the time Mexico had a moratorium on GM crops. These are only a few examples of the widespread problem of contamination of non-GM crops by GM crops. In fact, having argued for years that contamination was not a problem, the biotechnology industry is now promoting Terminator technology as a tool to prevent the unwanted flow of genes from GM crops.

The causes of hunger and poverty are mainly social and economic. They cannot be solved by technological fixes. If technology is to play a role in helping to reduce poverty and hunger it must be knowledge-intensive, rather than capital and resource-intensive, and farmers, rather than agribusiness, must control it. In other words, it needs to aim to empower farmers rather than make them dependent on commercial inputs. In the words of Dr Miguel Altieri, Dr Eric Holt-Gimenez and Dr Peter Rosset: "Across Africa, Latin America and Asia, farmer-to-farmer movements, farmer-led research teams and farmer field schools have already discovered how to raise yields, distribute benefits, protect soils, conserve water and enhance agro-biodiversity on hundreds of thousands of smallholdings. With appropriate support the spread of these approaches to thousands of other farm households can contribute to food sovereignty rather than corporate dependency".

Elisabet Lopez, Progressio's Environment Advocacy Co-ordinator Fr. Sean McDonagh, Columban Missionary

Benbrook CM (2003) Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Eight Years, BioTech InfoNet, Technical Paper No 6, Nov 2003