Genetix roundup

Soya Soya everywhere…
As Argentina tumbles further into financial crisis, an inspiring popular rebellion has been spreading across the country. The political space that has opened up out of the chaos has seen amazingly creative response. From the ‘Trueque’ barter network which 7 million people are using instead of money, to ‘asambleas’- neighbourhood meetings based on consensus which have started to squat and develop social centres. Workers are occupying factories and self-managing their workplaces. The downside of this political chaos has seen multinationals running rampage, in particular our old friends, Monsanto.
Monsanto arrived in Argentina in 1996, seducing farmers with the promise of Roundup Ready soybeans. Pretty soon over 90% agreed to adopt the technology which gave Monsanto a higher take-up rate among farmers in Argentina than in the whole of the USA. Looking at the crude statistics since the adoption of GM crop technology, Argentina’s total soya crop has doubled to 27 million tons. However, this growth in output is solely due to an increase in acreage under soybean cultivation. In fact, RoundUp Ready soybeans have had a 5-6% lower yield, and Argentina’s farmers are now worse off.
Monsanto has not only infiltrated Argentina’s agriculture, but is now totally transforming the Argentinean diet. While much of the soya produced in Argentina is exported, Monsanto is also flooding local markets full of desperate hungry people with GM soya, usually used for animal feed, for human consumption. The generous grain traders are also donating 1 tonne in every 1000 tonnes of Argentinean soya as food aid through a ‘charity’ programme called ‘Soya Solidair’. This soya aid is everywhere, in homeless shelters and soup kitchens, and Monsanto is essentially being paid to distribute its soya – which it can’t find a market for in Europe – to the poor of Argentina.
The irony of this all is that many Argentineans, even the left wingers, see genetically engineered soya as their salvation. Soya animal feed is Argentina’s main export, and its only way of generating foreign income. With the major presence of Monsanto, the Argentinean people have had little access to information about the health and environmental risks of GM crops. More than this, there must be a realisation that if Argentina does not want to repeat the cycle of debt and structural adjustment imposed on it by the IMF, it must break free from the corporations that are exporting its wealth and destroying its economy. A more sustainable and small scale agriculture that invests in the long term health of the environment must form a part of the solution.
Sources
1) ‘Monsanto Earnings Down on Bad Debt’ by Julianne Johnson. 23 July 2002. Agweb.com 2) Email from Craig Sams ‘Re: Monsanto’s Earnings Down on Bad Debt’ on www.ngin.org 3) ‘Genetically Modified Company’ The Economist August 15 2002
4) ‘Argentina is not a social laboratory it is a soya laboratory’ by Javiera Ruilli 5) ‘Why Argentina can’t feed itself’ Sue Brandford. The Ecologist. Oct 2002. 6) www.argentina.indymedia.org

Syngenta in Identity Crisis
Syngenta, the world’s largest manufacturer of agrochemicals, third largest owner of plant biotechnology patents and third largest seed supplier, seems to be undergoing a bit of an identity crisis. To judge by its recent behaviour, the company seems to think it’s turning into an NGO – or even a wing of government.
In November Andrew Bennett (former head of environment at Clare Short’s Department for International Development until headhunted by Syngenta), pulled off a major victory for the company by gaining a place for the Syngenta Foundation (the company’s charitable wing), on the governing body of the consultative group on the international agricultural research centres (CGIAR). CGIAR operates international agricultural research centres and seed banks whose mission statement is ‘To contribute to food security and poverty eradication in developing countries through research, partnerships, capacity building, and policy support, promoting sustainable agricultural development based on the environmentally sound management of natural resources.’ The appointment of the Syngenta Foundation has prompted fierce criticism from NGOs involved in CGIAR. They are angry at the lack of accountability shown by the organization, its increasingly pro-business, pro-corporate and pro-biotechnology policies, its failure to protect farmer rights and its failure to protect the material held in its gene banks from appropriation by corporations.
In late October Syngenta sponsored a meeting of scientists organised in India by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The principle outcome of the meeting was a draft recommendation on guidelines for biotechnology regulators in developing and developed countries. A prominent theme of discussion - advocated by Dr M.S. Swaminathan one of the founders of the green revolution – was the potential for small scale farmers of organic agriculture with ‘inputs’ from modern biotechnology.
While these incidents provide no evidence of a change of stance by Syngenta, they do suggest a definite strategy. Unlike, say, Monsanto, which is relying largely on bullying tactics backed up by the US government to push its GM agenda, Syngenta seems to be taking a more subtle, long-term, infiltration-oriented approach, co-opting the sustainable development agenda. It seems that by credibly establishing a ‘charitable’, ‘public-interest’ persona, specialising in GM issues, Syngenta wants to gain influence over opinion forming and policy-making, to be used in favour of the company’s long-term interests.

New markets for GM crops
Currently commercial GM crops are only grown on a large scale in the USA, Argentina and Canada. Eager to break out of this bubble, GM crop companies are desperately seeking new markets. Following Monsanto-Mahyco’s recent success in gaining approval for the commercial growing in India of its GM insect resistant BT cotton, Bayer CropScience’s Indian seed company ProAgro is attempting to launch a GM mustard on to the Indian market. Their product is tolerant to Bayer’s broad spectrum herbicide Liberty and incorporates hybrid breeding technology developed by Belgian company PGS, now also part of Bayer. Their application is currently being blocked by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) who are claiming that the crop has not completed a full round of independent field trials.
Whilst Bayer’s plans in India appear to have been at least temporarily thwarted, in the Philippines Monsanto has finally succeeded in gaining approval for the commercial growing of GM insect resistant BT maize. This approval comes after a sustained PR campaign by the company, and within 24 hours of the announcement of a $15-million grant from the USAID to build a new GM crops research centre in the Philippines. It also comes at a time when the Philippine government is facing enormous pressure from the US to co-operate in the war against terror.