GMO and Profits

GM crops are unpopular with European citizens and viewed with suspicion, but the industry's massive lobbying is finally paying off. Last week, the EU Environment Council accepted a proposal that could see GM crops planted in Europe as soon as next year. The proposal could alsogive Monsanto and other biotech giants the power to overturn decisions made by democratically-elected governments to ban GM crops. The proposal is being spun by the European Council as a 'compromise', but in reality it could allow GM companies like Monsanto to overturn any opposition. Experts have warned that it would weaken the legal basis upon which countries can ban GM crops, opening the legislation   prohibiting GMOs up to legal challenge. With Bayer and Syngenta already fighting in the courts to overturn Europe's ban on bee-killing "neonics",  this is a real threat.However, the European Parliament still has to vote on whether to take these proposals forward.

Within the Socialist Party there exists differing opinions on the benefits or otherwise of GMO food. There is no party-line on the issue, just the various and sometimes conflicting thoughts of our members. Fortunately, no-one subscribes to the theory that Big-Ag is involved in a conspiracy to create a docile and dependent population of automatons. We are neither enthusiasts nor alarmists. The problem with GMOs is not necessarily the GM technology but the nature of the businesses tasked with running this industry. This article By Harry J Bentham expresses much of our concerns.

​The controversy involving GMOs is that it is an extension of the problem of greed that has burdened mankind for as long as feudal lords or capitalists have been privileged to put their self-interests above the common good.

Whether or not certain GMOs on the market today actually cause cancer and infertility is irrelevant to the real debate. The problem is that we can guarantee that the companies engineering these organisms do not care if they do cause health problems (just as long as they can avoid any legal repercussions as with the tobacco industry). They are only interested in downplaying or blocking bad news, and putting out constant marketing and good news about themselves. Profit is their exclusive priority and they have to put increasing yields, shelf life and resistance to pathogens above anything else when designing crops. They have no choice than to do this, from their perspective, because the alternative is to allow themselves to be outperformed by their rivals.

The fact that corporations put their own profit above health is a systemic symptom of  the world economy, and it is already known to the majority of consumers. We face it every day. Most of the fast food served by multinational fast food companies is accepted to be unhealthy, so the claim that giant food companies have little interest in our health is not a conspiracy theory. It is the natural, rational suspicion that the agricultural producers of seeds will put profit over the long-term health of consumers and the interests of local farmers. In theory, genetic modification could lead not only to higher yields but healthier food. Unfortunately, the businesses involved only really care about beating competition and becoming the most successful supplier. This behavior poisons everything, perhaps literally, now that these companies have been entrusted to define the toxicity in crops as a defense against pests. What we can learn from this is that the problem is not GMOs, per se, but the aggressive greed of the corporations who desire the oligopoly on food production via GM technology.

The public harm caused by giant firms, especially when they practice their ability to lobby the state itself, already runs very deep in most facets of life. The more significant the tools made available to such firms, the greater the potential for harm. Even if specific specimens are not harmful and can be proven completely benign, the fact is that GMOs open up an unacceptable avenue for unprecedented harm and malignant corporate interests invading people’s innards. It is this, rather than the whole science of genetic modification, that should be opposed and protested against.

Genetic modification and synthetic biology do not need to be new instruments of oligopoly and monopoly. There is a benign alternative to foolishly entrusting the mastery and ownership of living organisms to greedy multinational leviathans. We can look into “biohacking”, a development which would transform society for the better, eliminating any need to trust an unsympathetic and self-interested corporation like Monsanto. DIY genetic engineering is already possible. DIY means the product will be entirely disinfected from corporate greed, and adhere to your own specifications. They would not be able to put their profit above your health, because they would not get the chance. With this, biohackers can already genetically modify organisms for their own benefit. The extent to which farmers can begin to modify their own crops using comparable technology is not yet clear, but the development nevertheless represents an extraordinary possibility. What if farmers and consumers could decide to genetically modify their own food? In that case, it would not be the profit-oriented poison that is being consumed at so many different levels as a result of corporate greed. Crops would be modified only insofar as the modification will meet the farmer’s own needs, and all the technology for this process could be open-source. This hypothetical struggle for DIY genetic engineering rather than corporate genetic engineering would be comparable to the open-source and piracy battles already raging over digital technology.

Of course, some new hazards could still conceivably emerge from DIY genetic modification, if the technology for it should become ubiquitous. However, the only risk would be from individual farmers rather than unaccountable corporations. This way, we would be moving away from giving irresponsible and vicious companies the ability to threaten health. Instead, we would be moving towards giving back individuals more control over their own diets. Of course, abuse would still occur, but it would not have global consequences or frighten millions of people in the way that current genetic engineering does.

In sum, there is no reason to complain that genetic modification is perilous in its own right. However, there is always peril in giving a great social responsibility to a profit-hungry corporation. In much the same way that large firms have captured the state machinery to serve their greedy interests, we should expect them to be subverting health and the public good for profit.

The complex dilemma over GMOs requires not an anti-scientific or neo-Luddite reaction, but an acknowledgment that intertwined monopolistic, statist and hegemonic ambitions lead to the retardation of technology rather than progress.

Adapted from an article by Harry J. Bentham