New Monsanto and GMO Propaganda

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.organicconsumers.org/mons...paganda723.cfm

New Monsanto and GMO Propaganda
Le Monde diplomatique July 2001
<http://www.en.monde-diplomatique.fr/2001/07/06monsanto>
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NEW MONSANTO AND GMO PROPAGANDA
Seeds of irreversible change
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Multinationals like Monsanto are facing real grassroots opposition in
the world, especially over agro-chemicals and GMOs. Monsanto has led the
big corporations towards diversionary tactics: they have issued codes of
conduct and ethical charters to conceal their real objective of creating
value for their shareholders. They are promoting their products as cures
for third world hunger and disease, and as an alternative to the dangers
of pesticides. They hope to win over a hostile public with advertising.

by AGNES SINAI * * Researcher at the Ecole des hautes Etudes en sciences
sociales (EHESS), Paris.
__________________________________________________ _________________

Monsanto has declared a state of emergency. Following a bomb threat at
its Peyrehorade site in the French department of Les Landes, the world's
second largest farm seed producer launched a security protocol on its
Intranet network to safeguard its computer systems and protect its
employees from physical attack. Personnel must report all suspicious
behaviour, anonymous telephone calls and persons not wearing security
badges; they must lock all doors, use passwords to block access to
computer screens and not use modems to connect to the outside world.
Only persons expressly authorised to do so may talk to journalists.
Monsanto-France's present director of communications, Armelle de Kerros,
is in fact no stranger to a culture of secrecy, since she was previously
with the Compagnie g?n?rale des mati?res atomiques (Cogema). But this
does not prevent Monsanto presenting an image of "transparency".

Since the scandal surrounding Terminator, the first killer plant in the
history of agriculture (1), the company has been divided between
defensive paranoia and aggression. Its troubles started when it bought
Delta & Pine Land for all of $1.8bn. This brought into Monsanto's hands
a patent for a method of genetically engineering seed so that it will no
longer reproduce from one year to the next. The Rural Advancement
Foundation International (RAFI) dubbed this sterilisation technique
Terminator. The ensuing international outcry forced Monsanto president
Bob Shapiro to withdraw the product and resign.

Since then, the multinational has abandoned its ambitious slogan, "Food,
Health, Hope", and is seeking to rebuild its reputation. Producing
genetically modified organisms or GMOs (now modestly referred to as
biotechnology) is a highly risky undertaking in terms of both image and
investment. Not to mention the possibility of biological accidents:
threats to biodiversity and the appearance of mutant insects resistant
to the insecticides incorporated into transgenic plants (2). In the
United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now encourages
farmers to devote at least 20% of their land to conventional crops so
that insects that are not resistant to the transgene bacillus
thuringiensis can develop.

All this goes to explain why, in the maelstrom of mergers, acquisitions
and restructurings, agrochemicals, including plant biotechnologies
(GMOs), are being systematically isolated from the other sectors so as
to compartmentalise the transgenic risk. In the same way, Aventis is
trying to dissociate itself from its agrochemicals branch, CropScience.
The firm used to market the transgenic maize Starlink, which can cause
allergies in humans. Although intended only for use as animal feed, the
maize turned up on a large scale in US consumers' crisps and cornflakes
and in Homemade Baking brand cakes sold in Japan. The same process
resulted in the creation of the world's largest agrochemicals group,
Syngenta, in October last year; the outcome of a merger between
Switzerland's Novartis and the Anglo-Swedish firm Astra-Zeneca, its
turnover is expected to approach $7bn.

After merging with pharmaceuticals giant Pharmacia & Upjohn, Monsanto
is now concerned only with agriculture, turning over $5.49bn last year. It
has made its flagship anti-arthritic drug Celebrex over to Pharmacia in
order to specialise in the production of plant health products,
agricultural seeds and, more especially, genetically modified seed.
Monsanto is now the world's second largest seed producer after Pioneer,
the second largest plant seed producer after Syngenta, and the number
one in herbicides. Its Roundup is the world's best selling herbicide,
with $2.6 bn turnover last year, nearly half that of the group. It is
now trying to get its transgenic products accepted by persuading
consumers it is better to eat a genetically modified plant than one that
has been sprayed with pesticides (3). To overcome the remaining
obstacles, the strategy is now taking on a philanthropic and ecological
guise.

CASHING IN ON ETHICS

Keen to cash in on the ethical approach, this January Monsanto published
a new Pledge containing five commitments to its customers; dialogue,
transparency, respect, sharing and benefits. According to
Monsanto-France's chief executive Jean-Pierre Princen, European
consumers, who are the most cautious about GMOs, need to understand that
a genetically modified organism is a genetically improved organism.
Hence the birth of the new Monsanto, referred to internally as Monsanto
M2: its seeds are ecological and healthy. Anyone who doubts that is
simply ill-informed. We need a clean break with the past. Who remembers
that Monsanto made the Agent Orange defoliant used by American bombers
during the Vietnam war? Now the multinational's teams meet in Ho Chi
Minh City to sell their herbicides and establish useful contacts with
the media, scientists and members of the Vietnamese government. From the
Philippines to Argentina, they are looking for unlimited freedom of
action: to be, in house jargon, "free to operate"

For outside consumption they are therefore pushing the ecological
benefits of GMOs, two kinds of which are sold by the group: the Bt gene,
first of all, which is obtained from the bacterium bacillus
thuringiensis and produces its own insecticide toxins. This makes
additional pesticide spraying unnecessary: a crop of Bt cotton will need
only two sprayings instead of six or eight. The second variety is
Roundup Ready, designed to be resistant to the Roundup herbicide. The
farmer buys a "kit" containing both the seed and the weed killer. The
firm describes Roundup as biodegradable, as a result of which the
Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud
Prevention (DGCCRF) in Lyons, France, is taking them to court for
misleading advertising.

In the US the EPA estimates that between 20m and 24m g of glyphosate are
spread every year (4). Vast quantities of it are used in growing soya,
wheat and hay, and on grazing and fallow land. Its use has increased
some 20% a year since 1998. Contained in Roundup, it is the most widely
sold herbicide in the world, earning Monsanto around $1.5bn every year.
The patent expired last year, but Monsanto will keep some of the
monopoly because its genetically modified plants are designed to be
tolerant to glyphosate. In Brittany glyphosate is a major and regular
pollutant. In October 1999 as much as 172 times the safe level were
found in the Elorn River, which supplies one third of Finistere with
drinking water. "This proves that calling Roundup biodegradable is a
fraud", explains Dr Lylian Le Goff, a biotechnologist with the
organisation France Nature Environnement. Pollution of the soil, water,
rain, the entire food chain and the atmosphere by pesticides has become
a serious public health problem that the French government has been slow
to recognise. Hence Le Goff believes that "it's essential that we apply
the precautionary principle and stop encouraging the use of pesticides,
especially when it's done through misleading advertising that claims
glyphosate-based products are harmless and biodegradable."

Consumers would ingest much more pesticides if genetically modified
plants were to spread because they contain so much of them. Like
dioxins, pesticides, including glyphosate, are not broken down in the
human body; they are a form of invisible pollution (5). Their molecules
have allergenic, neurotoxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic and hormonal
effects and are harmful to male fertility. They have similar properties
to female hormones, oestrogens; over all, these hormonal effects could
be responsible for a 50% decline in sperm counts over the last 50 years.
If that decline were to continue, the human race would have to resort to
cloning by about 2060.

Apart from their alleged biodegradability, Monsanto presents its Roundup
Ready transgenic seeds as being "climate friendly" because using them
would allow farmers to cut back on ploughing, or even stop ploughing
altogether; this would allow massive amounts of carbon gas and methane
to be stored in the soil, cutting US carbon emissions by 30%. In what
way non-transgenic cultivation would be less effective is not explained.
One thing is certain: there would be lower profits because an ordinary
crop would not need Roundup herbicide. Monsanto's sudden ecological
vocation and the zeal of its "sustainable development sector" president,
Robert B Horsch, coincide with the interests of people selling rights to
pollute, like the Montana landowners who have formed a coalition to sell
carbon gas emission rights.

TO THE POINT

If New Monsanto's language for external use is centred on "tolerance,
respect and dialogue", the strategic terminology used in-house is far
less compromising. The firm's "philosophy" as described by plant
development programme director Ted Crosbie to a meeting of Monsanto
Latin America executives in January this year is straight and to the
point: "deliver the pipeline and the future on the same day." In plain
terms, that means flooding available farmland with GMOs in order to
occupy the land irreversibly. From this point of view, Latin America is
"winning environment": Monsanto estimates there are 100m hectares to
be" developed" in Brazil alone.

Unfortunately, Brazil remains stubbornly resistant to GMOs according to
Nha Hoang and his colleagues of the Monsanto group responsible for the
"free to operate" strategy in Latin America. "It is already the second
largest soybean producer in the world, after the US, and will soon
probably become number one. It's the largest economy in Latin America
and it's the last of the three big powers without legally approved
biotech crops. Judges variously declared the regulatory process
defective, claimed that the appropriate environmental impact studies had
not been done and even held the existing biotech regulatory agency to
have been illegally constituted." The amended statutes of the agency in
question, CTNBio, are awaiting ratification by the Brazilian Congress.
The aim is to unplug the "pipeline" of transgenic soya, paving the way
for further marketing authorisations: YieldGard maize, Bollgard cotton
and Roundup Ready cotton next year, Roundup Ready maize in 2003
and Bt insecticide soya in 2005. Meanwhile Monsanto is investing $550m
in building a Roundup herbicide production plant in Brazil's north-eastern
state of Bahia.

The multinational's strategy is based on "biotech acceptance", getting
GMOs accepted by society and then, or at the same time, flooding the
markets. It involves massive high-profile publicity campaigns. In the
US, the sector's propaganda organ, the Council for Biotechnology
Information, buys TV commercial spots direct. Monsanto is a co-founder
of this organisation, which collects and disseminates information on the
"benefits of biotech". "Television is a powerful tool for getting
biotechnologies accepted," says Tom Helscher, director of biotechnology
acceptance programmes at Monsanto headquarters in Creve Coeur, Missouri.
He urges people to get their families and friends to watch out for
biotech publicity and is particularly keen to reassure American farmers
hesitant about buying genetically modified seed, for fear of losing
their foreign markets.

If Aventis Crop Science, BASF, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Monsanto, Novartis
and Zeneca Ag Products have launched massive propaganda campaigns in
the US, they are still hesitant to do as much in Europe. In the United
Kingdom, Monsanto's sales team is congratulating itself on the success
of its biotech advocacy programme; once trained by their firm, reps are
able to call themselves experts and sing the praises of transgenic
products to farmers and in schools. "There's no such thing as too much
communication," says Stephen Wilridge, director of Monsanto Northern
Europe.

The educational system is also strategic in the battle for minds. Partly
funded by Monsanto, the Biotechnology Challenge 2000 programme saw
33% of Ireland's secondary school pupils produce reports on the role of
biotechnology in food production. As he handed out the prizes and
trophies, David Byrne, the European Commissioner responsible for
protecting consumers' health, said: "There's no doubt in my mind that
there is a link between consumers' reluctance to accept biotechnology
and the serious lack of information on the subject." Patrick O'Reilly,
director of Monsanto Ireland, is hoping for wider participation this
year because "these students are tomorrow's discerning consumers and
decision-makers".

The multinational is learning to decode and recycle society's messages
and expectations. For some months Monsanto has been wavering between a
vague attempt at dialogue and a pathological rejection of the main
non-governmental organisations that dispute the supposed virtues of
GMOs. Greenpeace is the first in line, described as guilty of crimes
against humanity by Ingo Potrykus, the Swiss inventor of golden rice who
works for Syngenta. Golden rice is a transgenic rice enriched with beta
carotene (vitamin A), a second-generation GMO called pharmafood because
it claims to have medicinal properties as well as being a food.

The first therapeutic rice in the history of farming, it is just what
the big biotech corporations have been waiting for: the last sceptics
will no longer be able to doubt the fundamentally virtuous nature of the
GMO project. The vitamin A incorporated by transgenics will become the
moral harbinger of the world's transgenic food supply: who will dare
criticise its merits when so many third world children suffer blindness
because of beta carotene deficiency? And who will dare doubt that the
transgenic seed business serves a basically nutritive, ecological and
humanitarian purpose?

Whether golden rice will have the vaunted effect among the populations
concerned is open to question. Greenpeace and others have shown the
absurdity of it all by pointing out that to ingest an adequate daily
dose of vitamin A would be quite a feat for a third-world child: he
would have to eat 3.7 kg of boiled golden rice a day, whereas two
carrots, one mango and a bowl of ordinary rice would suffice. Potrykus'
public reaction at a press conference at Biovision (the biotechnology
"Davos") in Lyons this February was: "If you plan to destroy test fields
to prevent responsible testing and development of golden rice for
humanitarian purposes, you will be accused of contributing to a crime
against humanity. Your actions will be carefully registered and you
will, hopefully, have the opportunity to defend your illegal and immoral
actions in front of an international court."

FIENDISH DISPUTE

To doubt and to dispute are therefore crimes against humanity committed
by "Fiends of the Earth", a pun on Friends of the Earth and the domain
name of an internet site much valued by Monsanto personnel
(www.earthfiends.org). If political protest is "fiendish", that doesn't
leave much room for dialogue. And yet, new Monsanto's Pledge says: "We
commit to an ongoing dialogue with all interested parties to understand
the issues and concerns related to this technology".

This apparent solicitude masks a frank commercial strategy of conformity
on two fronts: to create conformity between the image of GMO products
and consumer expectations, and to create a conformity of thinking by
brainwashing them with intensive advertising and information. Because if
Monsanto's only aim is to get its global biopolitical project accepted,
new Monsanto will have to show an ethical face; it will be of variable
geometry since the multinational itself will write the rules. The
company has therefore engaged Wirthlin Worldwide, a business
communications specialist, to "find the mechanisms and tools to help
Monsanto persuade consumers by reason and motivate them by emotion".

Dubbed the Vista project, this survey of opinion is designed to detect
consumers' value systems. The data collected will be used to map out
people's ways of thinking on four levels: ideas, facts, feelings and
values. In the US, this research has resulted in advertising with a real
impact on the public, using as a major argument in favour of biotech the
slogan "less pesticides on your plates". In France, Monsanto employees
took part in this survey in the guise of a confidential interview where
they were invited to speak freely about what they felt about
biotechnology, good or bad. The aim was to train spokespersons who will
use messages designed for the public at large.

Access to genetic material and to markets with total freedom to
manoeuvre is the two-pronged strategy of "free to operate". It costs
$200-400m to develop a GMO and takes seven to 10 years. The
multinational wants a return on this massive investment, which it gets
by filing a patent on the plant. People must pay the firm royalties
every time they want to sow it. All varieties containing a genetically
modified organism will be patent-protected, which means that the farmer
will have to buy a licence. The risk, of course, is that the big seed
producers will be able to monopolise the world's genetic heritage and
take control completely and irreversibly. Farmers will no longer be able
to select their own seed.

This could be a problem for Monsanto, because it says in its pledge: "We
commit to bring the knowledge and advantages of all forms of agriculture
to resource-poor farmers in the developing world to help improve food
security and protect the environment." Hence its generosity in granting
the patent in the transgenic sweet potato to South Africa in the hope of
gaining a greater foothold there: "As to Africa, we could, with
patience, widen our position through YieldGard or even Roundup Ready
maize. In parallel, we should consider licensing on a free or minimal
fee basis some of our technologies adapted to local crops, such as sweet
potato or cassava."

This is a double edged strategy, with a show of generous intentions to
gain a hold over the least demanding markets - the least creditworthy
markets, true, but ones potentially dependent. A similar approach to
that taken with Syngenta's golden rice in Thailand (where about 70
patents had to be waived to make it available free of charge) or with
Indian cow's milk laced with Monsanto's Posilac, a hormone banned in the
European Union, in order to take control of local markets not
particularly keen on biotechnology.

RISKS OF GENETIC POLLUTION

Conversely, Monsanto recently got a Canadian farmer, Percy Schmeiser,
fined around $9,000 for "pirating" transgenic rape. He counterattacked
by accusing Monsanto of accidentally polluting his fields of
conventional rape with its Roundup Ready transgenic variety. Are the
courts capable of establishing the origin of genetic pollution? This
case, which is likely to be repeated elsewhere, shows the difficulty of
containing the accidental spread of GMOs. In France, such incidents are
passed over in silence. In March last year several batches of Advanta
conventional spring rape seed sown in Europe turned out to be
contaminated with another company's GM seed. The plants in question were
destroyed. Last August varieties of winter rape checked by the French
authorities proved to be contaminated with GM seed. But no GM rape has
yet been licensed for growing or consumption in France.

The imperfections of traceability are already evident. Accidental
contamination is becoming very frequent. A public health official in
Lombardy recently found GMOs in batches of Monsanto soya and maize seed.
GMOs have been found in stocks of maize seed stored in Lodi near Milan.
Pressure will increase in Europe as imported soya, much of it already
transgenic, replaces animal meal, which is now banned.

The firms producing transgenic seed are no doubt hoping to see the end
of GM-free varieties, banking on the massive supervision costs involved.
In the years ahead, farmers will probably find it increasingly difficult
to get hold of non-GM seed. With world research focusing on transgenic
seed, it is not impossible that non-GM varieties will become obsolete,
unadapted to changing farming techniques.+++ What does Monsanto's much
vaunted "transparency" really mean? The consumer has to rely on the
information supplied by the firm. Every genetic design is considered a
patent, and there is no legal obligation for the company to provide the
test to private laboratories so that checks can be made. In France, the
description of a genetic design is filed with the DGCCRF, which is the
only body to conduct analyses. It is not allowed to do it commercially,
so it cannot be used for the purpose by consumers or manufacturers.

The consumer will therefore have to be content with knowing that the
firm cannot sell seeds until they have been authorised for human
consumption and that it has committed itself "to respecting the
religious, cultural and ethical concerns of people throughout the world
by not using genes taken from animal or human sources in our
agricultural products intended for food or feed." The recent appointment
to the board of the US EPA of former Monsanto executive Linda Fischer
suggests that even if new Monsanto is not outside the law, it wants to
make it.

Translated by Malcolm Greenwood

__________________________________________________ _________________

(1) See Jean-Pierre Berlan and Richard C Lewontin, "Menace of the
genetic-industrial complex", Le Monde diplomatique English print
edition, January 1999, "Operation Terminator", Le Monde diplomatique
English internet edition, December 1998.

(2) The risk of uncontrolled dissemination was one of the justifications
given by French farmer Jose Bove and two other activists for destroying
transgenic rice plants in the greenhouses of the Centre de cooperation
internationale en recherche agronomique pour le d?veloppement (Cirad) in
Montpelier in 1999. The three appealed against suspended prison
sentences on 15 March.

(3) Les Editions de l'Institut national de la recherche agronomique
(INRA) has published a cartoon (La Reine rouge by Violette Le Quere
Cady, Paris, 1999); it is apparently recommended reading for Monsanto
employees. It uses the dangers of insecticides as an argument in favour
of GMOs.

(4) Figures quoted by Caroline Cox, "Glyphosate", Journal of Pesticide
Reform, autumn 1998, vol 18 no 3, published by the Northwest Coalition
for Alternatives to Pesticides.

(5) See Mohammed Larbi Bouguerra, La Pollution invisible, PUF, Paris,
1997.