The Vatican and GE Food

The Vatican and GE Food?

By Sean McDonagh, SSC

The most common argument from proponents of this technology is that genetically engineered food will be necessary to feed and cure a growing world population. They argue that, if population levels rise to 10 billion, it will be necessary to either increase land areas now under cultivation or increase crop yields by new technologies like genetic engineering. They point out that it is almost impossible to extend farming any further because where land is marginal cultivating it will only exacerbate soil erosion.

In 1992 Monsanto’s chief executive, Robert Shapiro spoke along these lines in a long interview with Joan Magretta in the Harvard Business Review . He argued that genetic engineering of food crops is a further improvement on the Green Revolution that saved Asia from starvation in the 1960s and 1970s. Similar arguments have been put forward by scientists, including Professor Christopher Leaver, Professor of Plant sciences at the University of Oxford. He points to the harsh realities of global population increase and shrinking agricultural lands. He claims that the only way to feed this growing population is through the use of gene technology. He also believes that it will be more environmentally friendly as it will involve the use of fewer chemicals in agriculture .

In August 2003 it was reported in many newspapers around the world that Archbishop (now Cardinal Martino), prefect of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said that the Vatican was preparing an official report on plant biotechnology which would come down in favour of genetically modified foods. The reason given for the Vatican’s position is that GE crops would help alleviate starvation and malnutrition . Similar reports appeared in other newspapers in Europe and Australia. Bishops from Third World countries like Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez of Marbel in Mindanao in the Philippines implored the Cardinal not to endorse GE crops.

Critics of genetic engineering reject the argument that GE foods will stave off global famine. They also question the accepted wisdom that the impact of the Green Revolution has been entirely positive. Dr. Vandana Shiva in correspondence with Norman Borlaug, considered by many to be the father of the Green Revolution, debunks many of the myths surrounding the Green Revolution. Dr. Shiva challenges the first myth that India was unable to feed itself until the Green Revolution was launched. She points out that the last famine in India took place in 1942 during British rule. She admits that India experienced a severe drought in 1966 and was forced to import 10 thousand tons of grain from the US. She indicts the US administration who, exploited this scarcity in its use of food as a weapon and forced non-sustainable, resource-inefficient, capital and chemical-intensive agriculture on one of the most ancient agricultural civilisations in the world. American agricultural experts like Borlaug did not introduce the Green Revolution to 'buy time' for India. They introduced it to sell chemicals to India .

It is also important to remember that the Green Revolutions is not simply a scientific story about hybrid crops, irrigation systems, cheap nitrogen and pesticides. John H. Perkins in his book Geopolitics and the Green Revolution recounts the environmentally destructive and socially unjust aspect of the Green Revolution . In detailed case studies Perkins insists that much of the energy behind the development of new varieties of crops stemmed from national security concerns in the U.S., Mexico, India, the United Kingdom and other countries. The theory was that, unless a growing population was able to harvest more food, there could be major security problems. They feared the rise of Marxist guerrilla movements. This led planners to focus exclusively on increasing crop yield even at the expense of exacerbating social inequity and undermining biodiversity. Curbing population growth was also a key US foreign aid objective in the 1960s and 1970s. It is also interesting to see how foundations closely connected to transnational corporations were instrumental in promoting the Green Revolution. These include both the Ford Foundation and the Rockerfeller Foundation. It is worth remembering that the Green Revolution has contributed to the loss of three-quarters of the genetic diversity of major food crops and that the rate of erosion continues at close to 2 per cent per annum .

The same 'feed the world' arguments are being recycled by the promoters of genetic engineering today. In reality famine and hunger around the world have more to do with the absence of land reform, social inequality, biases against women in many cultures, and with a lack of access to cheap credit and basic technologies, rather than a lack of agribusiness super seeds. As we will see in the case of Argentina planting GE soybeans, which is a cash crop, can even exacerbate poverty, especially for poor farmers.

Scientists dispute the claim that GE crops give higher yield.

At the moment there are no claims that GM crops give higher yields. In fact a the University of Nebraska recorded yields for Monsanto's Roundup maize that were 6- 11 per cent less than those for non-GM varieties. A 1998 study of over 8,000 field trials found that Roundup Ready soya seeds produced 6.7 to 10 percent fewer bushels of soya than conventional varieties . Early in 2003 a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University published an analysis of the GE crops which biotech companies are developing for Africa. Among the plants studies by the researcher, Aaron deGrassi, were cotton, maize and sweet potato. He discovered that conventional breeding procedures and good ecological management produced a far higher yield at a fraction of the cost. The GE research on sweet potato is now approaching its 12^th year and has involved the work of 19 scientists. To date it has cost $6 million. Results indicated that yield has increased by 18 percent. On the other hand conventional sweet potato breeding working with a small budget has produced a virus-resistant variety with a 100 percent yield increase .

George Monbiot points out that vast sums of public money is being spent developing GE foods even though consumers do not want them. The reason is that funding bodies like the Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is stuffed with executives from Syngenta, GlaxoSmithKline, Astra-Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Pfizer, Gentix plc, Millennium Pharmaceutics, Celltech and Uniliver. Even the council's new 'advisory group on public concerns' contains a representative of United Biscuits but no one from a consumer or environmental group . No wonder organic agriculture is starved of government research funding. The Honegrown Cereals Authority lists 67 research projects on its website. Only one is designed to promote and increase the competitiveness of organic farming .

The following day Dr. Brian Johnson wrote to The Guardian. "I prefer the NGOs view that people go hungry because of war, poverty, greed, corruption, disease, and lack of water deprive them of buying and growing the food that is globally so abundant. To invoke the spectre of world hunger in support of crops intended to intensify agriculture is morally and intellectually bereft" .

This fact was recognized by the participants who attended the World Food Summit in Rome in November 1996. They acknowledged that the main causes of hunger are economic and social. People are hungry because they do not have access to food production processes or the money to buy food. Those who wish to banish hunger should address those social and economic inequalities that create poverty and not pretend that a 'magic' technology will solve all the problems.

My experience confirms this approach. I lived in Mindanao during the El Nino induced drought of 1983. There was a severe food shortage among the tribal people in the highlands. The drought destroyed their cereal crops and they could no longer get food in the tropical forest because it had been cleared during the previous decades. Even during the height of the drought agribusiness corporations were exporting tropical fruit from the lowlands. There was sufficient rice and corn in the lowlands but the tribal people did not have the money to buy it. Had it not been for food-aid from NGOs many would have starved.

Devindar Sharma, chairman of the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security in New Delhi resonates with my own experience on the ground in Mindanao. He dismisses the claim that biotech food will feed the world. He told a meeting of the World Conference on Food and Farming in London in November 2002 that claiming that bio-technology or free-trade is needed to solve the problem (of hunger) is a deliberate distortion . He asked the audience to look at the experience of India under pressure from the WTO. 320 million people in India go to bed hungry each night despite the fact that India has food in storage. India is also exporting food because the poor cannot afford to buy the food. The government of India supports this because food exports bring in much needed foreign currency. But it does not help India's poor.

Will Biotech companies give GE food away free?

Do the proponents of GE food think that agribusiness companies will distribute genetically engineered food free to the hungry poor who have no money? There was food in Ireland during the famine in the 1840s but those who were starving did not have access to it or money to buy it. At a pro-GE conference in Sacrament, California in June 2003 President Bush decides to chide Europe for not responding to famine in Africa by providing hungry people with genetic engineering food. The next time he decides to lecture Europeans about responding to those in need he might do well to remember that the EU gives three times more food aid to Africa than the US. The EU also provides money and resources for poor countries to sources as much food aid locally as possible. This approach supports local farmers who, once the drought is over, can return to being more productive and thus avoid the need for foreign food aid. The US, on the other hand, ships in its own food so foreign aid becomes another mechanisms for subsidizing US agribusiness. This approach often undermines the livelihood of local farmers so that the country becomes dependent on imported food.

Returning to Professor Leaver's article in The Guardian, I find it interesting that he is silent about the economic and social factors, like land ownership, that gives rise to poverty and malnutrition. He confines his suggestions to hi-tech solutions, which in my experience usually benefit the better off farmers. GE soya in Argentina has helped wealthy farmers. Does he think that agribusiness companies will distribute genetically engineered food free to the hungry poor who have no money? Is land reform and economic policies aimed at helping small, subsistence farmers, no longer important? Is he not worried that genetic engineering will give enormous control of the staple foods of the world to a handful of Northern agribusiness companies? Most other people consider these companies to be dedicated, first and foremost to making profits.

Terminator Gene

The development by a Monsanto owned company of what is benignly called a Technology Protection System, but what is more aptly called 'terminator' technology, is another reason for asserting that the 'feed the world' argument is completely spurious . This technology, if it becomes widespread, will surely strike the death knell for the 1.8 billion small, subsistence farmers who live mainly in the Third World. Sharing seeds among farmers has been at the very heart of subsistence farming since the domestication of staple food crops eleven thousand years ago. The terminator technology would effectively stop farmers sharing seeds. Hope Shand, the research director with the Canadian ECT civil society organisation (CSO) is alarmed at such a development . Half the world's farmers are poor. They provide food for more than a billion people but they can't afford to buy seeds every growing season. Seed collection is vital for them . Terminator technology will enable Monsanto to control and profit from farmers in every corner of the globe. It will lock farmers into a regime of buying genetically engineered seeds that are herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant, copper-fastening them on to the chemical tread-mill.

For poor farmers in Third World countries, and the communities who depend on the food they produce, the widespread dissemination of terminator seeds will mean hunger, starvation and death. It is worth noting that the farmers of the South are the target market for terminator seeds. Delta and Pine have specifically suggested that rice and wheat farmers in countries like India, China and Pakistan are a priority market. In July 2003 thirty-two food producers in China, the largest food market in the world, announced their official commitment not to include GM ingredients .

At an ethical level I suggest that a technology that, according to Professor Richard Lewontin of Harvard University, introduces a ‘killer’ transgene that prevents the germ of the harvested grain from developing must be considered a grossly immoral act . It is a sin against the poor, against nature and the God of creativity. Furthermore, if anything goes wrong the terminator genes could spread to neighbouring crops and wild and weedy relatives of the plant that has been engineered to commit suicide. This would jeopardize the food security of many poor people. No wonder that there are those who consider it a form of biological warfare on subsistence farmers. If the Vatican endorses GE seeds it will also be approving this immoral technology which is, at present, central to current GE technology.

Some of the agribusiness companies promote their technology by talking about transferring the technology to the South. To date there has been very little transfer of genetic engineering technology from the transnational corporations to Third World countries. The appearance of ‘terminator’ technology shows that Northern companies are doing everything possible to avoid any such transfer of technology. The World Bank Panel on Transgenic Crops concluded that technology transfer between transnational corporations and less developed countries was so rare that the examples they cited were exceptional .

Argentina 2002

Those who are promoting GM food should look at the impact of GE soybeans on Argentina. Monsanto brought the technology to Argentina in 1996. About 90 pre cent of the soya farmers opted for GE soya. As a result Argentina's soya crop has doubled to 27 million tonnes. That might seems like good news but the social and environmental costs have been high. The growth in soya output has not come from higher yields from the GE soya but from more land devoted to soya. In fact GE soya has had a five or six per cent lower yield than conventional soya. The promised reduction in herbicide use has not materialized. If fact, many farmers are using two to three times more herbicide than they used with the traditional crop. It is estimated that costs have risen by about 14 per cent but since overproduction has caused the price to drop the farmers are actually poorer.

The one efficiency that GE soya has brought is very worrying ecologically and socially. Everyone will admit that the agricultural practices around cultivating GE soya saved time for the GE soya farmers since they do not have to perform the traditional tasks of plowing and harrowing. What they do is to drench the land with herbicide (Roundup Ready) and then sow the soya seed directly on the land. Such methods facilitate the larger holdings and this, in turn, has put small farmers out of business. The impact on the people has been a devastating. It also has had a knock-on effect on small market towns that depend for their livelihood on a thriving agricultural sector. Many people have been forced off the land and have migrated to cities where they now live in squalor in slums.

The ecological consequences are even worse. Forests are being cleared to plant more GE soya to compensate for the fall in prices. At the moment, farmers are spreading 80 million litres of herbicide on 10 million hectares under GE soya. The chemicals kill everything except the GE soya crop. This is affecting the humus quality of the soil which no longer can retain moisture. Traditionally, farmers grew soya in the summer and wheat in the winter. But now this rotation no longer happens; there is nothing but soya. This is not sustainable in the long term. No wonder that recently one of Argentina's leading agronomists, Jorge Eduardo Fuli stated that, our brief history of submission to the world bio-technology giants has been so disastrous that we fervently hope other Latin American nations will take it as a example of what not to do .

The drive to promote transgenic food is coming not from the farmers or consumers but from the biotech corporations. Looking back over the last eight years from the vantage point of November 2003, it is clear that vast majority of genetic manipulation has been undertaken for commercial gain. Friends of biotech companies in the Clinton and Bush administrations have used every opportunity to promote GE food globally. Biotech companies believe that they can make huge profits if farmers and consumers are pressurized into planting and buying genetically altered food. This is simply greed and we should not allow any spurious arguments to obfuscate that fact. What is at stake here is not some issue of minor importance to the earth and humankind. We are talking about manipulating the food sources of our world.

Corporation exercise total control of GE crops

Support for GM crops also means supporting the patenting of living organisms - seeds and animals. I would have thought that the Vatican, in line with its pro-life policies be opposed to the patenting life - because of the crucial ethical issues involved in claiming to patent life. In my book Patenting Life? Stop I argue that patenting life is a fundamental attack on (the) understanding of life as interconnected, mutually dependant and a gift of God given to all. It opts for an atomized, isolated understanding of life. It is also at variance with the Judeo-Christian conviction that freedom, openness and possibility are the hallmarks of life in God’s creation .

Even in rich countries many farmers are opposed to patenting seeds. In Canada and the US Monsanto engaged the services of an investigative agency to gather information on over 1,000 farmers that they consider are cheating on patented seeds . The affected farmers have coined a new word ‘bio-serfs’ to capture the feudal relationship which now exists between many seed companies and farmers. The experience of the Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, ought to alert other farmers to what can happen when seeds are patented. Monsanto filed a lawsuit for patent infringement because some genetically engineered canola was found on his land. Schmeiser is adamant that he did not plant Monsanto's GE canola. He insists that he is the aggrieved party because his non-GE seeds, which he had developed for the past 53 years, were contaminated with Monsanto's GE canola from a surrounding farm where GE canola seeds were used. In 2000 the court ruled against Schmeiser. It did not matter how the GE seeds arrived on the farm, whether by cross-pollination or whether it was blown in on the wind. The very fact that the plants were on his property meant that he was guilty. The judge ruled that all the profits from his 1998 harvest must go to Monsanto, even from the fields where no GE seeds were found.

By 2002 Schmeiser had spent $125,000 in lawyers' fees and an appeal will cost him another $50,000. Schmeister believes that Monsanto is intent on gaining complete control of the staple crops of the world by controlling seeds. In the past decade Monsanto has spent millions of dollars buying up seed companies all round the world. He points out that patents have run out on Monsanto's flagship chemical Roundup Ready. However, farmers who used Monsanto's GE crops will be forced to use Roundup Ready . In the light of Schmeiser's experience it is clear to many people across the world that patenting seeds and animals is now seen as a major economic, development and ethical issue. By endorsing GE seeds at this point in time the Vatican is also supporting the patenting of living organisms which runs directly counter to it's pro-life stand on so many other fronts. All GE seeds are patented.

GM food may poses a threat to human health

The simple truth is we do not know because GMO food has not been properly tested because of the farcical regulatory system on the US. This comedy of errors that masquerades as a regulatory system was lampooned by Michael Pollan in an article in the New York Times entitled, 'Playing God in the Garden' in 1998 . Pollan reminds his readers that they may be eating genetically engineered soya, corn or potatoes without knowing it because biotech companies have successfully lobbied the US government to ensure that the industry would not be forced to inform the public that the food they were eating was genetically engineered .

The author points out that one of these genetically engineered potatoes, Monsanto's New Leaf Superior potato is, itself, registered as a pesticide with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This potato has been genetically engineered to poison and kill the Colorado potato beetle. Every cell of Monsanto's New Leaf Superior contains a gene from the Bacillus Thuriengensis bacteria (Bt) which is highly toxic to Colorado potato beetles. This is why this potato is registered as a pesticide .

While the FDA has responsibility for licensing food, the US EPA has responsibility for licensing new pesticides. According to Pollan, the EPA pesticide officials believe that the New Leaf Superior potato was reasonably safe for humans. In an experiment, EPA scientists fed pure Bt to mice without causing them harm. Because humans have eaten old-style New Leaf potatoes for a long time, and because mice are not visibly harmed by eating pure Bt, the EPA concluded that potatoes containing Bt genes are safe for humans.

When consumer go to the supermarket anywhere in the US to buy a bag of Monsanto's New Leaf Superior potatoes they will find a list of all the nutrients and micro-nutrients in the potato. They will not learn that the potato has been genetically engineered or that it is legally a pesticide. The reason for this anomaly is a bureaucratic turf war between two government agencies responsible for human and environmental welfare.

In the US food labelling is ordinarily the responsibility of FDA. An FDA official told Pollan that FDA does not regulate Monsanto's potato because FDA does not have the authority to regulate pesticides. According to them, that is EPA's job. The farce deepens when one realises that an EPA-approved pesticide would normally carry an EPA - approved warning marker. For example, a label on a bottle of Bt will warn the user not to inhale the substance or allow it to come in contact with an open wound . The FDA has ruled that biotech foods need to be labelled only if they contain allergens or have otherwise been 'materially' changed .

However, in the case of Monsanto's genetically engineered potato, with the Bt gene, the EPA insists that it is the responsibility of the FDA to label the item since the potato is a food and, therefore comes under the remit of the FDA. However, spokesperson for the FDA told Pollan that it only requires genetically-engineered foods to be labeled if they contain allergens or have been 'materially changed'. In the case of the genetically engineered potato the FDA has judged that Monsanto did not 'materially change' the New Leaf potato by turning it into a pesticide. Therefore no FDA label is required.

Furthermore, the law that empowers the FDA (the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act) forbids it from including any information about pesticides on food labels. Pesticide labels are EPA's responsibility, according to the FDA, so Pollan was right back to where he started. While two agencies quibble about who has responsibility for what, the consumer is faced with eating food that is potentially harmful. Neither Agency will guarantee the safety of staple foods.

Pollan reported that some geneticists believe this reasoning is flawed because inserting foreign genes into plants may cause subtle changes that are difficult to recognize .

The corporation that produced the potato does not feel that food safety is its responsibility either. A Monsanto official told Pollan that the corporation should not have to take responsibility for the safety of its food products. Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe for the safety of biotech food, according to Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job .

Apart from important decisions falling between various agencies it is also the case that government agencies are under-resourced and therefore do not put risk-assessment high on their agenda. In 1998 the US Department of Agriculture was only spending one per cent of the funds allocated to biotechnology research to fund risk- assessment .

Current field-testing procedures are inadequate

Researchers have also challenged the adequacy of the current field-testing procedures for the various GE crops. They argue that since the tests are designed to rule out 'gene flow' they are faulty. The field-testing procedures require early harvesting of the crop or alternatively culling the flowers on a crop like potatoes. Such flawed procedures cannot give adequate data to the regulatory agency to allow it to accurately assess whether there will be a major risk associated with a large scale commercial planting of a transgenetic crop. Furthermore, the fact that the experimental area is small and the time scale is limited to one or at the most a few harvests means that there is little possibility for assessing the negative impact on microorganisms, insects and plants over a longer period of time. Extrapolating to the wider environment inevitably brings considerable scientific uncertainty, given varying climatic and agricultural practices.

Most trials are designed to evaluate the agronomic characteristics (e.g. yield) rather than the ecological impact. Finally current tests are carried out on a single GE crop. A single crop-testing regime is a very poor guide for judging the potential danger to the environment when two or 20 GE crops are planted in close proximity to each other . Studies are currently conducted on a case-by-case basis, neglecting the potential for cumulative impacts (e.g. as ever increasing numbers of herbicide resistant crops are grown). With regard to human health, testing has, to date, relied on laboratory studies with laboratory species .

The Guardian newspaper in Britain is one of the most the most independent papers on the planet. They are not beholden to big business, politicians or a rigid ideology. Yet in 1997 two of their most respected journalists John Vidal and Mark Milner did a survey on the biotech industry. What they found was alarming:

· A revolving door between the US government and the biotech industry.

· Heavy corporate lobbying to rewrite world food safety standards in favour of biotech companies.

· New laws protecting the US food industry from criticism.

· Unexpected environmental problems.

· Local contracts locking farmers into corporate control of production.

· Attempts by the world's leading PR firms to massage the debate in favour of genetic engineering.

· The use of world organisations like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to challenge governments opposing genetically modified crops. (Exactly what the US is doing now at the WTO).

· Consumers being given no effective choice of foods.

·Widespread fear that the economies of developing countries will be affected .

Why was Dr. Pustai treated so badly when he raised questions about GE potatoes?

In 1999 the research conducted by Dr. Pusztai raised questions about the safety of GE food. He is a mature and highly competent scientist who received a doctorate in biochemistry at Lister Institute. In 1963 began working at Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. He worked there for the next 35 years. He is credited with pioneering work in lectin research and is recognised as a world expert on this little known protein and had many published books and articles . Dr. Pusztai designed the feeding trials for the 1996 Scottish Office funded GM potato research. He found that when he fed GE potatoes to rats after 10 days there were major adverse changes in the kidney, thymus, spleen and gut of the animals. The rats' brain size also decreased. In the light of these disturbing findings Dr. Pusztai called for more research. When Dr. Pusztai went public with the results of his research he was promptly sacked by the Rowett Institute. Pusztai believes that the action was taken at the instigation of the biotech industry.

Further cause for concern

In July 2002 the Food and Safety Authority (FSA) conducted the world's first-known human GE food trial. There were 18 volunteers involved, of whom seven used colostomy bags after having their lower intestine removed. They were given a meal that included GE soya. The researchers then analysed the volunteers' stools. Among those with no lower intestine they found a large portion of GE DNA survived the passage through the small bowel. No GE DNA was found among those with a complete intestine. The findings are worrying because it means that gut bacteria could take up GE DNA . If there is the slights possibility of injury to human health the 'precautionary principle' would dictate that GE food should be allowed into the food chain until much more comprehensive and independent research has been carried out.

Why is it impossible to get insurance on GE food if it is so safe?

If GE crops are so safe isn't it astonishing that growers cannot get insurance cover. The main farming under writing companies view GE foods much as they viewed asbestos, thalidomide and acts on terrorism in the past. A study carried out in Britain by Farm ( an advocacy group for small farmers) insurers feel that not enough is known about the long-term effects of GE crops on human health or the environment to warrant insuring them . NFU Mutual one of the insurance companies most closely linked with agriculture told Farm "NFU Mutual will not indemnify the insured in respect of any liability arising from the productions, supply of, or presence on the premises of any genetically modified crop, where liability may be attributed directly or indirectly to the genetic characteristics of the crop. In particular , no indemnity will be provided in respect of liability arising from the spread or threat of spread of genetically modified organism characteristics into the environment or any change to the environment arising from research into, testing of, or production of genetically modified organism" . NFU Mutual is not alone in taking such a stance towards GE crops. The Agricultural Insurance Underwriters Agency has an exclusion clause for liability arising from GE crops. It does not anticipate any change in this position in the near future . Surely this is the most damning indictment of GE foods. If they are so safe why will no one insure them?

The recent evaluation of GE crops in Britain.

Extensive research in Britain urges caution

In October 2003 the results of the world's most comprehensive scientific review of GE crops compiled by scientists from both pro- and anti GE lobby was published in Britain. The group was chaired by the chief scientist in Britain, Sir David King. The report unexpectedly emphasised the uncertainties and potential dangers of the crops rather than the advantages. It urged caution and called for more studies to protect the environment and the consumer .

The study evaluated the 3 years field scale trials on GE oil seed rape, sugar beet and corn. It concluded that GE oil seed rape and sugar beet should not be grown in Britain because of its negative impact on biodiversity. These appear to do more harm to the environment than conventional crops. GE maize, on the other hand, seems to allow for the survival of more weeds and insects and may be approved . The commission that carried out the study recommends that farmers who are growing GE crops should set up a fund to compensate conventional farmers whose crops have been contaminated by GE crops. The biotech industry is opposed to this development .

The research predicted that GE oil seed rape would readily cross with wild relatives creating hybrids that would carry GE genes into the countryside. These crops could become herbicide resistant and thus confirm all the fears about superweeds. Furthermore some hybrids could be fertile. These could interbreed with other varieties of the brassica family . Studies conducted in Britain on GE oilseed rape showed that farms could be infested with 'feral' plants for 16 years from a single crop. Only heavy spraying with chemical would kill them off .

The scientists were also concerned about the distance over which commercial crops could cross fertilise with wild plants. Scientists found that GE pollen from trial sites of oilseed rape had traveled 16.1 miles. It was probably transported there by bees. This six times the previously estimated maximum distance for such pollen to travel . This raises the question whether it is sensible and proper to grow GE crops at all in countries which have wild relatives capable of producing hybrids and about the separation requirements that would be necessary to avoid contaminating conventional crops. Given the fact that oilseed rape travels six times further than previously thought in countries like Ireland and Britain organic farms would be contaminated within a few years.

Studies in Britain focused on the effect on GE crops on wildlife. One expert predicts that GE crops will cause the extinction of skylarks. One of the chemical sprays used for GE beet would wipe out a weed known as fat hen, which produces seed that are vitally important for the diet of skylarks . According to the RSPB other birds at risk include the yellowhammer, tree sparrow and corn bunting. Number of the later have fallen by 95 percent in the past 25 years.

Genetic Engineering promoted by Spin

Given the huge financial stakes involved in biotech crops it is understandable that all the stops are being pulled out in this battle for control of food production. The biotechnology industry has retained the services of a global PR company Burson Marsteller. This company specializes in crisis management and handling difficult or unsavoury situations. For example it advised Babcock and Wilcox, the builders of the Three Mile Island nuclear installation in the US, during the crisis in 1979. It also helped Union Carbide manage publicity in the aftermath of the Bhopal tragedy in India which killed over 1500. Among its clients, in the past few decades were the repressive regimes in Indonesia, Argentina and South Korea.

There is no demand for GE food. In Britain a wide consultation was conducted in 2003 involving over 28,000 people. There was a clear message to the British government and the retail trade. Only 2 per cent said that the crops were acceptable in 'any circumstances'. Only 8 percent were happy to eat GE food .

The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace held a two day consultation seminar on GE crops in Rome on November 10 and 11. In a press release after the seminar stated that the Pontifical Council will not fail to offer its contribution to enlighten consciences so that plant biotechnologies are all opportunity for all, not a threat. The statement continued (The Pontifical Council will keep, among other things, three elements in mind,) Solidarity in trade relations among nations ….Environmental safety and the health of all … (and) understanding between scientific world, civil society, and political authorities at the national and international level . The first part of the text seems to lean towards approving GE food while the second urges caution. I hope that prudence prevails and that the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace does not endorse current GE technologies which are firmly in the control of transnational corporations.

As a missionary I know that many spiritual leaders working close to their people in Third World countries are opposed to GE food. 14 bishops in Brazil have appealed to the government not to sanction GE crops. They state that "it is clear that large corporations will be the greatest beneficiary, with grave damage to farmers" .

I worked with the T'boli people in Mindanao for over ten years during which I came to know and respect the bishop of the diocese of Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez of Marbel. He has led a vigorous campaign against the planting of Bt. Corn in his diocese because he sees what the impact will be on the people and the land. If the Vatican supports GE foods he and many others around the world will feel that the Vatican has abandoned them favour of giant biotech corporations who are poised to make billions of dollars on GE seeds.