[New from GRAIN] Seedling April 2009 now available

SEEDLING APRIL 2009

IN THIS ISSUE...

Despite growing evidence that industrial farming is destroying our planet, the giant agricultural corporations are continuing to tighten their grip over world farming. Paradoxically, it is the European Union's half-hearted and misguided move to combat climate change by insisting that motor vehicles use more agrofuels that is encouraging one of the most dramatic manifestations of this trend -- the rapid expansion of sugar cane cultivation in Brazil. The country's ethanol boom, vociferously encouraged by President Lula, is not only pushing the agricultural frontier ever deeper into the Amazon basin but is also -- and this has gone largely unnoticed -- greatly strengthening the penetration of multinational corporations. As we show in some detail in our first article, the latest arrival is Monsanto, which, by unexpectedly snapping up two local companies at the end of last year, has overnight turned itself into the world's largest sugar cane breeding company. The big attraction for Monsanto is the prospect of introducing genetically modified sugar cane into the world's largest market.

Given the increasing dominance of these companies, it is perhaps scarcely surprising that, while the interlinked food, financial and economic crises are wreaking havoc on the lives of millions of ordinary people throughout the world, the agribusiness giants are just getting richer and richer. A year ago we published an article which revealed that, while people in many parts of the world had been protesting against record food prices, the agribusiness giants had raked in shamelessly high profits. Now, in a brief update, we show that the situation has got even worse. To mention just two of the companies: Cargill's profit rose by a further 69 per cent in 2008 and Monsanto's by an extraordinary 120 per cent. Another frightening -- and also under-reported -- phenomenon has been the way dominant powers, particularly the United States, have taken advantage of programmes of agricultural reconstruction after wars and natural disasters. Our analysis makes it clear that "military" aid and "agricultural" aid have become so deeply intermeshed that it has become all but impossible to distinguish one from the other. What we may be seeing is the construction of a new template for US aid abroad.

Corporations are often found to be promoting their own interests in the most unlikely and opportunistic fashion. A case in point concerns the endeavours to develop a vaccine for bird flu. Edward Hammond, an expert on infectious diseases, provides a detailed account of how the world's largest vaccine companies have been using the World Health Organisation to obtain samples of bird flu viruses for free from developing countries, but have then been refusing to make available to those very countries the vaccines that they develop. This story is still unfolding: Indonesia, outraged by what has been happening, is trying to get the WHO to change its rules.

While agribusiness is on the offensive, the voices of opposition have also grown louder. One of the people who has been putting forward a powerful alternative vision for many years is Dr Melaku Worede, the Ethiopian plant geneticist. For many decades he has been saying that the best way to enhance farmers' incomes and to protect the planet's biodiversity is by encouraging diversity on the farm and by making sure farmers control the seed breeding and selection process. Several decades ago Dr Worede developed a breeding programme with farmers that increased the yields of their own land race varieties to such an extent that they became competitive with commercial varieties. In 1989 Dr Worede was awarded the Right Livelihood Award -- the alternative Nobel Prize -- for his work with Ethiopia's plant genetic diversity and food security.

In his interview with us, Dr Worede admits that the outlook for Africa is scary, largely because of the speed with which the climate is changing. But he sees a way forward through the urgent creation of extensive interlinked seed exchange networks that permit a flow of seeds between farmers in different regions and in different countries. These community seed banks, he says, allow farmers to cross-fertilise in terms of seeds and knowledge and thus to adapt to climate change. "We also need to look to wild varieties, as they are hardier than those that are cultivated", he says. Diversity, he stresses, is the key to the future. And, acting in tandem with this, farmers' knowledge. "Without that, you can forget it", he warns.

The editor 

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Seedling editorial

Seedling editorial

Editorial

Once again genetic modification features strongly in this edition of Seedling. Such is the pace of change in global farming today that it seems that every quarter we have something urgent and new to say about genetic modification, often bringing to the discussion information that is not readily available elsewhere. Our first article deals with contamination. We have known for some time that, despite the reassurances of the biotechnology companies, genetically modified crops invariably contaminate other, non-GMO crops planted nearby. Indeed, it seems clear that this has been part of the companies’ strategy for spreading their crops in a region. But it is becoming equally clear – and this certainly was not part of the companies’ agenda – that many peasant communities are developing strategies for dealing with the contamination. In particular, indigenous communities in Mexico, after lengthy discussions, are taking action. At times, their moves are surprising: for instance, they have decided that contaminated maize should not be destroyed but treated as if it is sick, and gradually cured, even if it takes a hundred years to get it healthy again.

Not everywhere have communities been able to organise effective opposition to GMOs. As we show in our article on the 12 years of GMOs in Argentina, one of the tragedies of the soya boom in that country is the destruction of age-old peasant communities, as soya plantations have taken over the land. Nowhere else in the world has such a large area of land been devoted to a single GM crop. Although financial investors and big farmers are still making large profits, the land is dying. New superweeds, resistant to the glyphosate herbicide, are emerging. And, predictably enough, the companies have come up with a new technical fix: a new form of GM soya that is resistant to another herbicide – dicamba. How long will it be before weeds develop resistance to this too?
Meanwhile, fresh threats from genetic engineering emerge. One new technology is based on minichromosomes. Our article explains, in terms accessible to the non-expert, the science behind this new technology. It is interesting to note that, although the biotech companies present this new technology as safe and effective for – yet again – saving the world from hunger and environmental degradation, their patent applications tell a different story: their main goal is pharming (the production of drugs and chemicals through engineered crops). Although the risk of contamination from pollen may decrease with this technology, a new threat will emerge: contamination through bacteria. This raises the spectrum of new forms of contamination, not only between species, but also – and very alarmingly – between kingdoms.

Thankfully, thousands of communities are carrying on with their old way of life, based on very different principles. One such community, called Mangabal, lies deep in the Amazon forest, beside the Tapajós river. Like many others in the Brazilian Amazon, it was formed more than a hundred years ago when north-eastern migrants of European origin were lured to the Amazon basin to tap rubber. The men “solved” the gender imbalance by kidnapping young women from neighbouring indigenous groups. The women brought indigenous knowledge into the rubber-tapping communities, teaching the men how to create living seed banks of cassava. Similar communities are to be found in the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, where slaves were allowed by their owners to establish “Creole gardens” in the forest so that they could cultivate their own food. These gardens, which were integrated into the forest around them, also became living seed banks, with the breeding of new species and the conservation of medicinal plants. Some of these gardens still exist today and are being rediscovered by the authorities. The farming principles that lie behind this cultivation in both the Amazonian and Caribbean communities are diversity and sustainability – the qualities that modern farming, particularly with GMOs, is destroying.

One of our most popular publications last year was a Briefing on land grabbing – the way governments and corporations, alerted by last year’s food crisis, are scouring the world in search of arable land where they can grow food to ship back to their own countries. For those of you who missed the report, we include a summary and details about how you can find the report on our website. We also have a summary of our latest Briefing on a new form of rice – Nerica – that is being strongly promoted in Africa.

Fighting GMO contamination around the world

GRAIN

Ever since GMOs were first introduced in the mid-1990s, farmers’ groups and NGOs have warned that they would contaminate other crops. This has happened, just as predicted. In this article we look at how communities in different parts of the world that have experienced contamination are developing strategies to fight against it.

[Three videos accompany this article which can be viewed here: http://www.grain.org/videos/?id=195]

When GM crops are planted they contaminate other crops with transgenic material. In places where GM crops are grown on a large scale, it has already become almost impossible to find crops of the same species that are free of GM material. And the contamination spreads even to areas where GM crops are not officially permitted. [1] The GM Contamination Register, managed by GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International, has documented more than 216 cases of GM contamination in 57 countries over the past 10 years, including 39 cases in 2007. [2]

Monsanto and the other biotech corporations have always known that their GM crops would contaminate other crops. Indeed, it was part of their strategy to force the world into accepting GMOs. But around the world people are refusing to lie down and accept genetic modification as a fact of life; instead they are struggling against it, even in places subject to contamination. In fact, some communities experiencing contamination are developing sophisticated forms of resistance to GM crops. These usually begin with short-term strategies to decontaminate their local seeds, but often seek over the long term to strengthen their traditional food and agricultural systems.

We look at the experiences of communities in different parts of the world in dealing with GM contamination to see what insights they can offer others faced with similar situations. Each situation is unique, and gives rise to different processes. Common to all of them is the primary importance of collective action – of communities working at the grassroots to identify their own solutions and not depending on courts or governments, which, without strong social pressure, tend to side with industry.
The experience of communities in Mexico

For the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Guatemala, maize is the basis of life. In the creation story of the Maya, maize was the only material into which the gods were able to breathe life, and they used it to make the flesh of the first four people on Earth. For other peoples of Mexico, maize is itself a goddess. The plant has been the fundamental food of Mexicans for centuries, and thousands of varieties provide an amazing range of nutrients, flavours, consistencies, recipes, and medicinal uses.
In January 2002, researchers at the University of California in Berkeley announced their discovery that local varieties of maize in the highlands of Oaxaca state had been contaminated. Other communities of small farmers carried out tests on their own crops and were shocked to find that they too had been contaminated. For these people, it was a deep blow to their culture. They could not sit back: something had to be done.

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