Robin Page is concerned about the implications for farming if the geneticists succeed with their soft sell and charm offensive
FOR those of us linked closely to farming and aware of genetic engineering over the past 30 years, the recent advertisements by Monsanto, the American agro-chemical giant, have been disturbing. So much so that the Countryside Restoration Trust, of which I am chairman, is complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority: after the scares of DDT and BSE we now have MAD - Mad Advertisers' Disease.
Monsanto's approach is a carefully calculated soft sell, in which those who express doubt or hostility are labelled Luddite. In the CRT's case, nothing could be further from the truth: we use much of agriculture's new technologies, but we do not like to feel misled. Paradoxically, we are taking the Vegetarian Society to the ASA, too, for also making claims that we believe mislead the consumer. A recent Vegetarian Society advert implies that a vegetarian diet leads to less pollution, slows global warming, stops deforestation, etc. The advert fails to mention that rice fields are a major producer of greenhouse gasses and that monoculture soya production is probably more polluting and leads to as much deforestation as cattle ranching.
However, the vegetarian advert results from woolly, muddled thinking, while the Monsanto advert seems to be a determined effort to get acceptance for technologies that could be harmful if misused. These could make Monsanto huge sums of money. Monsanto's claim is that by producing herbicide- and insect-resistant crops through genetic modification, "food [will be] grown in a more environmentally sustainable way, less dependent on the Earth's scarce mineral resources". Similar sorts of claims were made by the makers of the DDT-based seed dressings, insecticides and sheepdips of the 1950s and 1960s - their new chemistry was going to feed the world; instead it gave us an environmental catastrophe from which we are still recovering.
BSE was another miracle of high-tech husbandry: a mixture of junk processed food and organo-phosphate chemicals used to control warble fly but creating a devastating biological and economic cocktail. Once BSE appeared, we were told by politicians and scientists there was "no risk", that BSE could not "jump species". Overnight, the reverse became true. The beef on the bone ban took the hysteria to the opposite, and equally absurd, extreme, thanks to the smug Agriculture Minister Jack Cunningham.
The truth is that some of the new biotechnologies could be fraught with danger, yet scientists (some with vested interests) are again reciting the "no risk" mantra. Monsanto says in its advertisements "we believe biotechnology is one way to cut down on pesticides used in agriculture ". To the layman this is fine, but the volume of chemical is irrelevant, it is the impact of that chemical that is important. Monsanto is breeding rape resistant to its own herbicide, called Roundup - which, incidentally, the CRT uses responsibly on its land. Roundup kills most "weeds". Consequently the use of Roundup in a crop of rape is not addressing a specific problem - it is spraying prophylactically. All "weeds" will be eradicated. Consequently, not only will the crops be weed free, but also insect free and largely bird and mammal free. The land will have the biodiversity of a billiard table.
The CRT on its Cambridgeshire land is showing that the exact opposite is possible; that with sympathetic farming and specific treatment for specific problems, high yields, quality food and abundant wildlife can be achieved; we are creating a living countryside, working with nature and not against it and are helping to put the "culture" back into "agriculture ".
Ironically, herbicide-resistant crops can lead to more chemicals being used. The modified seeds that are left in the fields, known as "volunteers", maintain their herbicide resistance; consequently they may (if crops are rotated) have to be knocked out with other sprays. In Monsanto's case, this means that Monsanto sells the Roundup-resistant seed; it then sells the Roundup; it then sells additional sprays the following year to kill the "volunteers". What very good business! Pollen drift from genetically modified rape can then affect the orthodox crops of neighbouring fields and even cross with wild relatives such as the wild radish or wild turnip, possibly producing superweeds that cannot be killed with Roundup.
There are similar problems with plants that have been genetically engineered to resist or even kill insects. What happens if these genes escape into the general countryside, affecting bees and other pollinators? The end result could be catastrophic, with poor crops and few wild birds because of the lack of insects. Is this possible end-product what Monsanto calls "food grown in a more sustainable way"?
Sadly, one more gene is being played with by some other companies - "the terminator gene". This stops second-generation seeds from germinating, meaning farmers can not hold back some of their crop for next year's seed, as it would not grow. So the chemical company has total control over the farmer for both chemicals and seed.
At the moment, Monsanto, along with others, is conducting a charm offensive in the Third World. The slogan is "Let the Harvest begin - the seeds of the future are planted. Allow them to grow. Then let the harvest begin. Because securing food for our future begins a better life for us all". As it happens, neither I nor the CRT is against all biotechnology. But we are against folly, misrepresentation and exploitation. If Monsanto is keen to feed the world, why does it not concentrate on producing genetically engineered crops that will fix their own nitrogen - so saving farmers billions of pounds in artificial fertilisers? Why isn't it transferring the drought-resistant properties of millet and sorghum into wheat? Why isn't it producing disease-free cereals to prevent the use of fungicides? And if its ultimate aim is humanitarian, why isn't it making these life-saving technologies available to the third world? In the opinion of a humble English peasant, I believe Monsanto's motives revolve too much around profit and that a healthy, safe environment is more important than Monsanto's millions.
Logic would suggest that biotech research should be taken away from the chemical companies and should be undertaken at public expense for the good of food supply and a healthy world. Of course, this country had such an establishment, at Cambridge - the Plant Breeding Institute - with a worldwide reputation. With remarkable skill, the Tories privatised it; they sold it to Unilever for £66 million in 1987 and it became Plant Breeding International. It is now on the market again; the price is expected to be more than £200 million, and some believe that it will even make over £300 million. Those in the know are backing only one buyer - Monsanto.
