questions + answers

The key difference is that genes are moved between species.

Traditional breeding involves breeding organisms within the same species. In genetic engineering, however, genes are forced to move across often quite different species. For example, this kind of manipulation has seen cow genes inserted into soy beans, moth genes into apples, rat genes into lettuce, spider genes into goats and even human genes into rice.

Similarly, while genetic engineering is a form of biotechnology, what sets it apart from many other gene technologies (such as cloning and gene therapy) is that it involves transferring genes across species.

The GE industry is built on the premise that genes and their functions can be isolated, patented, spliced into an organism, and controlled.(1) However, several recent studies have called into question this simplistic view of the science of genetic engineering.

For example, a 2007 study published in the leading scientific journal Nature reveals that genes appear to operate in a complex network where they react, interact and overlap with each other in ways we still do not understand.(2) This research raises serious questions about the established ways in which we assess the safety of GE crops.

Notes

(1) Crick FHC (1957) On protein synthesis. Symp. Soc. Exp. Biol., 12, 138-163.

(2) The ENCODE Project Consortium “Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project” (2007) Nature, 447: 799-816.

In Australia, GE ingredients in food are derived from four main crops:

• imported corn (or maize) and soy; and
• local and imported canola and cottonseed products.

In 2008, GE canola was grown for the first time in NSW and Victoria, and may enter the food chain. Canola oil is used in a variety of processed foods, and canola meal can be fed to livestock such as chicken, pigs and dairy cattle.

Other GE ingredients may also be found in many essential processed foods such as bread, pastries, snack foods, baked goods, vegetable oils, margarine, flours, starches, sauces, fried foods, soy foods, lecithin, sweets, soft drinks and sausage skins.

Soy alone can be found in up to 60% of all processed food, including soy flour, soy oil or minor ingredients such as lecithin.

Corn is also widely used in processed foods — look out for corn starch, corn flour, corn oil as well as more hidden ingredients such as maltodextrin.

The largest use of GE crops is not to feed people directly but as animal feed — fresh meat, milk and eggs may be derived from pigs, cows and chickens fed on GE grains.

The True Food Guide (https://www.truefood.org.au/truefoodguide) lists companies (and their brands) that are avoiding the use of GE food. It also lists those companies and brands at risk of containing GE ingredients since their producers are not acting to remove these sources of contamination. Some companies have taken the initiative to mark food as “non-GE” or “GE free” on packaging.

Fresh vegetables sold in Australia should all be GE-free and organic foods are certified as being GE-free.

Three multinational chemical companies virtually control the entire Australian market in genetically engineered food:

• Monsanto
• Bayer
• Syngenta

These companies also produce toxic chemicals such as pesticides. Their pesticide production is often the basis for producing GE food crops — seed is genetically engineered to become resistant to their commercial herbicide.

Monsanto

An American company, Monsanto has a long history of producing toxic chemicals such as PCBs and Agent Orange (the notorious pesticide used during the Vietnam War).

The company’s powerful weed-killer, “Roundup”, kills almost all plant life except Monsanto’s own GE crops.

Monsanto produces GE soy, corn, cotton and canola, with GE canola commercially released in Australia for the first time in 2008. The chemical company, Nufarm, currently holds the licence to market Monsanto’s GE canola in Australia.

Bayer

Bayer has been repeatedly criticised for its corporate behaviour. For example, in 2003 it was revealed that a Bayer subsidiary continued to sell blood-clotting medicine for haemophiliacs to Asia and Latin America for over a year after the product had been withdrawn in the West, due to evidence that it was infecting haemophiliacs with HIV.(1)

Another investigation found that Bayer had fed students a highly hazardous pesticide linked to serious disorders. Bayer tried to use the results of the study to argue that restrictions on pesticide use should be eased because no immediate adverse effects were suffered.(2)

In 2004, it was revealed that Bayer had kept its anti-cholesterol drug, Baycol on the market for four years after it first became aware of the dangers associated with it. The drug has been associated with approximately 100 deaths and 1600 injuries worldwide from side-effects, including severe muscle wasting and kidney damage.(3)

Syngenta

Swiss-based Syngenta was formed when two other chemical companies — Astra Zeneca and Novartis – decided to fold their genetic engineering divisions into a new company.

Syngenta has attracted criticism for its continued manufacture and sale of the insecticide Gramoxone or paraquat. A number of countries in Europe and the global south have banned or resticted the use of the chemical. Workers and farmers regularly exposed to paraquat experience serious problems with their health. The high toxicity of the chemical can lead to serious ill-health, and even death, following exposure.

Pro-GE groups

There are also a number of organisations in Australia that speak on behalf of GE companies or GE food. Key groups include the following.

• CropLife – the peak body of the agricultural chemicals industry.
• Agrifood Awareness Australia – a pro-GE lobby group founded by CropLife Australia, in conjunction with the Grains Research and Development Corporation and the National Farmers Federation.
• Grains Research and Development Corporation – has strategic partnerships with Bayer and Monsanto.
• The Institute of Public Affairs – right-wing think tank that receives funding from the GE industry.
• The Producers Forum – a GE industry front group.
• Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) – invests in GE crop research and has strategic partnerships with Bayer and Monsanto.

Unfortunately, Australia already allows the commercial growing of genetically engineered canola and cotton, making us one of only a handful of countries that commercially grow GE crops. GE canola was commercially released in NSW and Victoria in 2008.

There have been close to 900 experimental trials of other GE crops in Australia.

GE canola

Monsanto and Bayer have applied to commercially grow GE canola across Australia. In 2008, Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GE canola was commercially released in NSW and Victoria.

Bans in the other canola-growing states (South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia) still prevent GE canola from being grown there. The canola variety is genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup. The introduction of GE canola in North America has led to a marked increase in herbicide use and the development of herbicide resistant weeds. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready canola also caused increased liver sizes of up to 16% when it was fed to rats in Monsanto’s own study.

Canola oil is used in a wide range of processed foods and the meal can be fed to livestock such as chicken, pigs and dairy cattle.

Bt cotton

The GE cotton grown in the north (NSW and Queensland only) is known as “Bt cotton”. It uses a gene derived from a bacteria called Bacillus Thuringensis (Bt), which produces a protein that kills the cotton bollworm. Produced in every part of the Bt cotton plant, the toxins act as an internal insecticide. Monsanto’s herbicide-resistant GE cotton is also grown.

Bt cotton is not only used for cloth and cotton products — the cottonseed is also crushed for oil used in food and cotton “trash” is fed to Australian cattle that produce our milk and meat. Some food companies, such as Heinz Watties and Unilever, have taken steps to ensure milk used in their foods is from cows not fed GE cotton trash.

Other crops

Over 800 trials of GE crops have been conducted in Australia, including GE wheat, sugar cane, grapes, pineapples, papaya, and bananas.

While these are experimental trials, the crops are grown on farmland in the open air, posing contamination risks to both the environment and non-GE farmland.

There is growing scientific evidence that GE crops are harmful to biodiversity and the environment. Furthermore, once GE crops are released into the environment they cannot be recalled. As living organisms they can reproduce and pollute indefinitely.

The introduction of herbicide-tolerant GE crops to the US has resulted in a huge increase in both herbicide use, and the incidence of herbicide-resistant weeds.

Roundup, the herbicide sold by Monsanto in conjunction with its Roundup Ready GE crops, has been shown to be a potential endocrine disrupter — that is, it could interfere with our hormones. It is also toxic to certain wildlife, such as tadpoles.

The introduction of GE canola has been shown to have serious biodiversity impacts. For example, a UK government study found there were 24% fewer butterflies in the margins of GE canola fields because there were fewer weed flowers (and hence nectar) for them to feed on. In addition, there were fewer seeds for birds.

The use of Roundup on GE soy has also been shown to have an adverse impact on soil health, leading to reduced amounts of beneficial nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil.

Insect-resistant GE crops (termed Bt crops) have been shown to be toxic to “non-target” organisms (such as butterflies) and beneficial insects (such as green lacewings). They also threaten soil and water ecosystems, since many Bt crops secrete Bt toxins from the root into the soil. Agricultural wastes from Bt maize have been identified entering water courses.

Bt crops are intended to prevent the need for three applications of insecticide. Yet Bt maize varieties continuously release a toxin into the environment in quantities 3000–5000 times higher than the sprays used for non-GM farming.

In 1935, some 3000 imported cane toads were introduced in north Queensland to control native cane beetle populations. Today, cane toad numbers exceed 200 million, spreading into neighbouring states and threatening local biodiversity. We learnt an important lesson from this — playing around with natural ecosystems can have unpredictable effects which are extremely difficult to undo. This is just as true for the genetic engineering of crops.

In fact, the risks associated with GE crops may be greater – pollination through open air exacerbates the potential for contamination and hampers containment.

To date, no assessments of the environmental impacts of GE crops have been undertaken in Australia. However, one thing is certain – once harmful effects become apparent, it will already be too late.

Independent safety testing on the health impacts of food derived from GE crops is remarkably limited. Leading health bodies, such as the Public Health Association of Australia and the British Medical Association, have raised concerns about the safety of GE foods and called for stringent testing.

There are three chief concerns with GE food:

• the potential for increased levels of pesticide in our food;
• introduction of unfamiliar or unexpected proteins, toxins and allergins; and
• the use of antibiotic-resistance genes in GE plants.

We simply don’t know if GE food is safe to eat because there have been no long-term studies looking at the impacts of GE food on human health. Studies that have been done raise serious concerns. These studies include a peer-reviewed paper, published in 2007, which found evidence of liver and kidney toxicity in rats fed a variety of GE corn that has been approved for human consumption.

Companies responsible for GE crops, such as Monsanto and Bayer, also produce dangerous and harmful chemicals, many of which have been the subject of legal proceedings. There is good cause for concern when their crops enter the human food supply. The safety assessment of GE foods lacks the strict testing protocols used in the assessment of other novel substances, such as pharmaceutical products and food additives. Furthermore, our food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), relies solely on industry data in assessing the safety of GE food.

GE crops radically change the nature of farming, transferring control of seed from farmers to agrochemical companies such as Monsanto. Contamination from GE crops also threatens the integrity of traditional farming crops and affects access to markets.

Seed for GE crops is owned by agrochemical companies under patent law. This enables them to set conditions on farmers using the seed — for example, requiring farmers to pay royalties or demanding that farmers purchase new seed each season rather than sowing seed saved from previous harvests. GE crops bind farmers into legally enforceable, restrictive and onerous agreements.

In Canada and the United States, where GE crops have been sowed for over 12 years now, these companies aggressively pursue legal action against farmers for patent infringement. Many of these are farmers unknowingly growing GE crops on their land as a result of contamination. Canadian canola grower, Percy Schmeiser, was sued by Monsanto because GE canola was growing on his land as a result of contamination. Monsanto successfully argued patent infringement.

There is also a much larger economic cost for farmers across the board.

Again in North America, conventional growers are discovering that GE crops from neighbouring fields have become weeds that cannot be sprayed off with herbicides because they have inbuilt resistance. The Royal Society of Canada has warned that most of the country’s prairie land is now contaminated with herbicide-resistant canola weeds, the removal of which raises farm costs.

US and Canadian farmers are discovering a further problem with GE crops —export markets won’t buy them. Following the introduction of GE canola in Canada, sales to Europe dried up. The same is true of US corn, which is no longer sold to Europe.

Monopolising the seed market and denying farmers their ancient right to save, exchange and replant seeds is not a solution to poverty.

A United Nations report involving 400 scientists concluded that GE crops were not a solution to soaring food prices.(1) It found little evidence to support claims that GE crops increase yields. In fact, the report warned that the patents associated with GE crops actually pose problems.

World hunger will only end when the underlying causes of poverty are addressed. Poverty prevents people from securing their basic right to food either because they have no means to purchase food or they have no access to the farmland and natural resources necessary to meet basic food needs. GE crops do nothing to address the poverty that causes hunger. In fact, they threaten to make it worse by putting the control of the world’s food supply into the hands of a few giant multinational companies.

In developing countries, straightforward solutions that empower the poverty stricken are among the most effective ways to reduce hunger and secure sustainable livelihoods. For example, a major study from the United Nations concluded that organic farming offers Africa the best chance of breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition it has been locked in for decades. The study analysed 114 projects in 24 African countries, finding that yields more than doubled where organic, or near-organic, practices were used. That increase in yield jumped to 128% in east Africa.

High-tech agricultural technical packages, in contrast, are expensive and often accentuate inequalities, contributing to landlessness and food insecurity.

Ending world hunger also requires confronting bad land stewardship practices that lead to permanent environmental degradation. GE crops that tie farmers to using chemicals promise to make this situation worse, not better, as well as posing new environmental risks.

Footnote
1. The report was commissioned by the UN–World Bank International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology Conference in April 2008.

Organic agriculture uses environmentally friendly farming methods. Not only are organic foods good for the environment, they are healthier and tastier too.

The main features of organic farming include the following.

1. Organic farming avoids artificial chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
2. Organic farmers rely on developing a healthy, fertile soil and growing a mixture of crops>/li>
3. Organic animals are reared and to high animal welfare standards, without the routine use of drugs and antibiotics.
4. Organic farming bans the use of GE organisms.

The term “organic” is carefully controlled by a number of certification bodies that check and enforce high environmental standards. In Australia, look out for organic certification symbols from one of these bodies.

Going organic can be a way of life — organic clothing, cosmetics, gardening products and even restaurants can all be found, and all of them are GE-free.

For more information on going organic, see Clean Food Organic’s guide.

Globally, 80% of GE crops (canola, corn, cotton trash and soy) are actually fed to animals. These GE crops then enter the human food chain through products such as meat, milk and eggs.

The health effects GE feed has on the animals forced to eat it are unknown, as are the possible health effects on humans who consume these animal products. Furthermore, the adverse environmental impacts of GE crops are the same whether they are fed to humans or animals.

Current Australian labelling laws do not require meat, milk and eggs derived from animals fed on GE crops to be labelled.

Claims from the GE industry about potential health benefits of GE food are often based on spurious research. While crops genetically engineered to offer nutritional benefits are tested, none of these are commercially available and essentially are used by the GE industry in a desperate attempt to sell GE foods to consumers.

Genetically engineering crops to raise the levels of certain nutrients may affect their complex metabolic pathways and result in unexpected effects. Scientists have raised concerns that the current methods for assessing the safety of GE foods may not detect the production of unexpected and potentially harmful substances in crops genetically engineered in this way.

Other techniques are available to increase the nutrient levels of crops that don’t pose the same unacceptable levels of risk to human health and the environment as GE crops. For example, using selective breeding, in India and tropical Africa, scientists have been breeding staple crops with high iron content in an attempt to tackle micronutrient malnutrition. High-iron pearl millet and common bean are already on the fast track for release in Asia and Africa.

Ultimately, however, the only way to eat healthily is to have a varied and balanced diet, which is dependent on nutritional food security. Together with a sustainable agriculture, this can ensure benefits to human health and biodiversity.