November 28, 2003

 

 

Thailand May Lift Ban On GM Crops To Benefit From a Strategic Position in Monsanto's GMO push into Asia

 

The US genetic engineering and agro-chemical giant Monsanto announced plans earlier this month to make Thailand a regional base for its genetically engineered Round-Up Ready corn and Bt corn by 2006. For this to be realised, the company insists that Thailand lift its ban on GMO crop field trials by end of this year.

That's the deal: Lift the ban in the next few weeks and benefit from a strategic position in Monsanto's GMO push into Asia.

Once again the genetic engineering and agro-chemical giant, responsible for 91% of the GMO, or genetically modified organism, crops grown in the world, is saying: "Trust us." Yet the Thai public have every reason to distrust Monsanto and its supporters.

The ban that Monsanto is now challenging was imposed in April 2001 precisely because field trials of Monsanto's Bt cotton caused contamination of farmers' fields.

When the field trials were initiated, Monsanto and key officials in the Agriculture Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry guaranteed that these experimental GMO crops would be carefully controlled. They weren't. Just as scientists warned for more than a decade, once released into the environment these GMOs get out of control, contaminating non-GMO cotton and ending up in places they should never have been.

Due to this case of GMO cotton, the Thai cabinet imposed a ban on any further field trials on farmers' land. Yet the Thai public are now told that Monsanto is ready to conduct more field trials and wants the ban lifted.

While this may suit Monsanto's business plans, does it make sense for the Thai government to once again put the environment and farmers' interests at risk?

Added to this is the significant risk of GMO corn getting into the food chain and contaminating people's food. So the Thai public face an even greater risk, and there is no plausible guarantee that the same harmful effects on farmers and the environment will not be repeated.

While Monsanto and its supporters in the Thai government see the ban merely as a barrier to business, the Bt cotton scandal is a potent reminder that there was a very good reason for the ban to be imposed in the first place. Moreover, in the 31 months since the ban was imposed, new studies by overseas scientists, agronomists and economists have provided critical new insights into the negative impact of GMO crops on the environment and on farmers.

This includes a broad consensus in the scientific community that ``outcrossing'' (GMO contamination of non-GMO plants) is the norm rather than a freak occurrence, and new evidence concerning damage to soil ecology and the proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds.

Only a week after Monsanto announced its GMO corn plans for Thailand, a new report by Charles Benbrook, "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Eight Years'' (BioTech InfoNet, Technical Paper Number 6, November 2003) was released in the United States exposing the impact of GMO crops on pesticide use.

It said: "Contrary to the often heard claim that GE [genetically engineered] technology has markedly reduced pesticide use, today's GE crops have modestly increased the overall volume of pesticides applied in the production of corn, soybeans and cotton from 1996 through 2003.

"There is now clear evidence that the average pounds of herbicides applied per acre planted to herbicide tolerant (HT) varieties have increased compared to the first few years of adoption. This is no surprise, given that scientists have warned that heavy reliance on HT crops might lead to changes in weed communities and resistance, in turn triggering the need to apply additional herbicides and/or increase rates of application.''

What this suggests is that one of the most important claims made by corporations such as Monsanto that GMO crops will lead to a reduction in pesticide use is untrue. Even if there is a reduction in the use of certain pesticides, the fact is that for herbicide resistant GMO crops like Round-Up Ready soya and corn, farmers are locked into using an ever increasing amount of Monsanto's own glyphosate herbicide, called Round-Up.

Monsanto is both a genetic engineering giant and a global agro-chemical company, and as such increased use of its pesticide products, particularly Round-Up herbicide, is a key part of its business plan. And as the US experience shows, farmers soon find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of dependence on Monsanto's patented GMO seeds and increased use of its pesticides.

Experience also shows that farmers who try to break out of this cycle, or who are the victims of GMO contamination by Monsanto's crops (such as Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer sued for "stealing'' Monsanto's Round-Up Ready canola when genetically engineered canola contaminated his fields) face lawsuits by the company. With the company suing more than 400 farmers in the United States and Canada, Thai farmers have all the more reason to keep Monsanto out of their fields.

The new study on pesticide use and GMO crops in the US has a broader significance in Thailand. It is only one example of new research released over the past 31 months that must be discussed and debated in Thailand before any decision is taken to release GMO crops into the environment - a move that ultimately risks turning the country into Monsanto's "GMO colony''.

One of the primary reasons for the ban on field trials was to give concerned government agencies an opportunity to undertake a comprehensive review of GMOs and examine their risk to the environment. This means that Thai government agencies must recognise new scientific and agro-economic evidence and assess its implications.

However, instead of providing critical new information to the Thai public, the Science and Technology Ministry's National Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, or Biotec, appears to be simply promoting public acceptance of GMOs, while waiting for the ban to be lifted. While this may suit the business plans of Monsanto, which maintains close ties to Biotec through ISAAA, or the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a corporate front promoting GMOs in developing countries and enforcing patent rights, the fact is that the interests of the Thai people and the environment must be served first and foremost.

Instead of questioning the ecological risks of GMOs, Biotec's failure to engage in an objective and transparent assessment of new scientific research merely raises questions about the agency's own interest in lifting the ban on field trials and casts doubt on its ability to serve the Thai public.

The position of the Thai government must be clear: As long as new information on the ecological risks and economic impact of GMO crops is still being collected, assessed and understood, and the long term health impact of GMOs remains unknown, the ban on GMO field trials must be treated as a necessary measure to protect the rights and interests of Thai farmers, consumers and the environment.

This is a legitimate approach that should be treated as a matter of principle, as well as a practical policy that is based on common sense. So if the GMO field trial ban does not suit Monsanto's business plans, then it is Monsanto's plans that must be thrown out, not common sense.