Jiglu: Farmtalking: Discussion: GM Crop Fears Come Home To Haunt Us

Originally from: Dave

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T HE late Prince "I gotta horse" Monolulu, a brilliant figure from my racecourse childhood, was an almost invariably successful tipster. There was scarcely a race in which he did not pick the winner and hand its name to some customer, who afterwards jubilantly regaled us with tales of the gloriously robed and plumed pundit, and of his acumen. But then, there was scarcely a runner in any race which Monolulu did not pick either. It was just that those who had handed over cash to obtain the great man's tip, only to find that they had backed a singularly lethargic pig, did not tend to brag about it in the Owners' and Trainers' Bar. So Monolulu thrived and enjoyed a reputation as a seer. I have to remind myself of this when I am given credit for being psychic or phenomenally astute. I warned in these columns of imported third world chicken in processed products and ready meals. I declared open war on farmed Scottish salmon. On both occasions, within months, it was recognised that both foodstuffs were actually or potentially dangerous. A couple of months ago, I wrote a series of articles about GM foods, pointing out that they had no perceptible benefits in terms of human nutrition, but that they threatened us with enslavement to their huge, multinational masters, with ecological and economic disaster and, in theory at least, with mutations in our crops, our wildlife and in our bodies that might prove apocalyptic in their scope. I observed that the potential of such modified genes to synthesise toxic enzymes in specific cells is, quite simply and beyond doubt, unknown. Their effects and possibly harmful interactions with other foods would take decades to detect, or might never be recognised. I noted that the bio-technology giants had abandoned all normal, business-like pretence of courtesy. In a series of cases, they have sued farmers for vast sums for having "their" mongrel crops growing on their (the farmers') lands, even though the seeds had been carried there on the wind and the farmers in question, so far from inviting these interlopers, had been invaded against their will. Those who developed these seeds also banned farmers from collecting them, so that each year, they must buy more. Yet the sole argument so far offered for the technology is that it should or could feed the starving, who surely, more than anyone else, are dependent upon sustainability so that they can withstand economic and climatological vagaries. The biotech companies are also refusing to admit that they might be liable for any environmental or health damage caused by their crops or by transgenic mutation. Today we learn that Argentina, one of the nations rash enough to allow its land to be used as a research laboratory for the new technology, is infested with superweeds which, if they are to be controlled, require almost constant use of powerful herbicides, potentially rendering what was once fertile arable soil dead for generations to come. Meanwhile, farmers and their families living among GM crops, which cover half of Argentina's arable land, are complaining of rashes, streaming eyes and other classic allergy symptoms, while there are plentiful substantiated reports of livestock suffering distress, dying and giving birth to deformed young. The nature and eventual consequences of these developments are not known. Plainly the resistant weeds are, as in all genetic evolution, adapting in accordance with the programmes installed in their DNA, and are growing stronger and stronger. This is peril enough. The greatest danger, however, lies in inadvertent or deliberate horizontal gene transfer. Transfers have been identified between very different bacteria, between fungi, between bacteria and protozoa, between bacteria and higher plants and animals, between fungi and insects. Some species are more acquisitive than others. E.coli, for example, which resides in vast numbers in the gut, owes its extreme toxicity to this trait; 1,387 of its 5,000 genes have been acquired from other species. Just suppose that other plants or bacteria in the human gut have acquired entirely new genes through transgenic bacterial action??? The cost of such a development could be horrendous and, eventually, global. I may be accused of being alarmist, but even the most ardent GM advocate would have to admit that we simply do not know, and that the potential losses here far exceed the entirely conjectural gains. Last month, the Government, disregarding a Government-funded study and the will of nine out of ten British people, gave the go-ahead for GM maize to be grown in Britain. Fortunately, the conditions are so hard, and the risks for the biotech companies so great, that GM companies have, for the moment, retired from the fray, licking their wounds. We should thank God. We were within an ace of seeing our lush pastures and arable fields turned into rank scrub. Do I feel vindicated as yet another prophesy proves true? Despite moments of self-deception, the answer is, I'm afraid, no. It does not take a Monolulu to recognise that hasty corruption of the natural order, driven not by science or by demonstrable need, but only by consideration of the bottom line, risks calamity, and that the potential scale of that calamity can never justify a gamble, until research has reduced the odds to a racing certainty. I am not, therefore, proudly proclaiming "I told you so", because most children, and certainly my grandparents, already knew the perils of such haste and folly. It took high technology and big business to consider such experimentation with our planet worthy of a flutter.