Uh-oh, GMO

>> A leading American environmentalist warns Montreal of the risks of genetic manipulation

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Alongside the growing popular resistance to acronym-heavy international financial and trade institutions (WTO, IMF, MAI, CAP etc) has come a movement that addresses a basic concern to each and every human--food. Our relationship to what we eat, how we eat it and how safe and healthy our supply of it is has come under increasing scrutiny. Alarming charges of bizarre scientific fiddling at the genetic level and intensive farming practices have been linked to the current structure of global trade. Opponents point to, as usual, the World Trade Organization (WTO) as public enemy number one.

Brian Tokar, a leading U.S. environmentalist and anti-genetically-modified-organism (GMO) crusader, helped kickstart the North American Green movement over the past two decades. An activist since the 1970s, Tokar recently edited Redesigning Life?, a compendium of 26 articles by different authors critiquing the practice of genetically engineering food, the manipulation of animal genetics, and takes a look at the growing international outcry against it.

Tokar, 46, who will speak on September 20 with internationally known French farmers and authors José Bové and François Dufour, is a faculty member at the Institute for Social Ecology and Goddard Institute in Vermont.



Mirror: What are some of the ups and downs you've seen in the Green movement over the past 25 years?

Brian Tokar: In the last couple of years we've seen a tremendous resurgence of all forms of activism at the grassroots level. In some ways the WTO demonstrations in Seattle brought into the public eye a resistance movement that's been gradually emerging for about a decade, and since Seattle, there has been much more visibility and much more confidence in its integrity and in its ability to really speak for a different kind of future.

In some ways, politics in the U.S. has become much more polarized in the past several years, where a large section of the public either identifies with or is willing to acquiesce to a horrifically right-wing agenda, whereas a whole generation of young activists sees the entire mainstream political system as having really nothing to offer.

M: You've been an outspoken critic of genetically modified foods and genetic engineering. However, I noticed that it was never a big campaign issue in the States or up here. Why do you think it's taken voters so long to take ecology and the quality of our food seriously?

BT: It has to do with the nature of our mass media in this country, which is controlled by some of the same corporations that benefit from lax environmental regulation, increasing corporate dominance over our food and government policy. Despite that, growing numbers of people have stated the environment as a major concern and the fact that large numbers of people, even in a very close election, voted for Ralph Nader speaks of an understanding that neither of the established parties in the U.S. have much of substance to say about environmental issues.

On the subject of genetically engineered food, up until a couple of years ago, most polls were showing that the vast majority of people weren't even aware that so much of the food was genetically engineered, that industry strategy for years was to keep this issue as much as possible out of the media, and they succeeded in doing so.

Noisy leftist agitators

M: José Bové and François Dufour have gone on to become household names in Europe, but there doesn't seem to be a North American equivalent. There isn't that big of an outcry over here about G.E. foods other than from a few noisy activists on the left-hand fringe. Do you think there's potential for that to change?

BT: From everything we see, the concerns about genetic engineering in the U.S. cut across the conventional political spectrum. All kinds of people are concerned about the integrity of their food, and that's why we've seen the industry having to hold back in releasing further generations of G.E. crops. Two or three years ago they were saying that by this year, almost all the major crops would be genetically engineered, that there would be all kinds of genetically engineered vegetables on the market. They've had to hold back because they know that even though the opposition has not been as visible in the U.S., the more people know about the genetic engineering of food, the more they're opposed to it. And that's true, I believe, across the political spectrum in the U.S.

M: So does being anti-GMO necessarily mean being politically on the left?

BT: No, not necessarily. I think the most articulate criticisms of G.E. come from the left because G.E. is in many ways an issue of who controls our food, and people in the centre of the spectrum in the U.S., unlike in Europe, are more willing to let major transnational corporations increase their control over our food supply.

M: Not to mention Canadians.

BT: Yep, Canadians as well. Of course in Canada, we just got the news a couple of months ago of the Loblaws chain refusing to even allow food on their shelves that's labelled as free of G.E. products, which is just almost unbelievable from a U.S. perspective. We don't have a lot of companies labelling as such but the idea that a whole supermarket chain would take a position like that is almost incomprehensible.

M: Anti-GMO has been linked to the anti-global capitalism movement and to the anti-WTO movement. How does the present structure of world trade help the spread of GMOs?

BT: The WTO is the means by which the U.S. is trying to force acceptance of GMOs down the throats of people in countries all over the world who are rejecting this technology. The U.S. has threatened WTO sanctions against Europe around GMOs and this has intensified under the Bush administration. We recently saw Sri Lanka pressured by the U.S. into indefinitely postponing a decision it had made to not allow any imports of GMO products into Sri Lanka.

Beware the soybean

M: What's the potential danger of having genetically modified soybeans?

BT: There are many. In terms of human health we know that allergic properties are passed on from DNA from foreign organisms into our food supply, we know that there's a threat of antibiotic-resistance spreading, and this is work that's been suppressed because it's very difficult for scientists to get the funding to do the kind of independent testing that's needed to really confirm what the health effects are. But we know from work in Scotland that there's a potential for changes in the nutritional composition of foods and of serious metabolic problems in laboratory animals that have been fed these products. This research has not been allowed to continue and it speaks of how much agro-business and the biotech industry has come to control the research agenda.

In terms of environmental effects we know that pollen from G.E. crops can't be controlled. The evolutionary and ecological consequences of exotic combinations of genetic traits that have never existed in nature before have been cited by many evolutionary scientists as potentially very disruptive and very damaging.

M: Genetic engineering does have its benefits though--anything from identifying and neutralizing MS in fetuses to fighting cancer and a million other diseases, doesn't it?

BT: Well, there's very little evidence that the diversion of medical research toward biotechnology has really been all that beneficial. In the last 15 years, other lines of research in medicine have largely been relegated to the sidelines because there's been such an overwhelming focus on the use of biotechnology methods. I think there are benefits in the research sphere using some of the methods of biotechnology, but the kinds of sweeping medical benefits that the biotech industry has been claiming for years have not really been proven out with experience. It's diverted the agenda away from, for example, research on the underlying environmental causes of disease.

In food, claims are made about decreases in chemical use, increases in yield and what have you, and again, independent evidence, even more strongly in the case of food, goes completely counter to the claims that the biotech makes for the supposed benefits of their products.

Technology yes, playing God no

M: Anti-biotech activists have been labelled by their enemies as Luddites. Are you anti-technology per se?

BT: No, I'm not anti-technology. I think there are technologies that have tremendous benefits to offer. There was a really important article, for example, in New Scientist from England back in February, showing how the systematic, scientific application of some very traditional methods of enhancing agricultural yields, bringing in some of the recent scientific insights from the organic movement in the North, and combining it with traditional African knowledge has produced tremendous improvements in the ability of people to grow more food. We're talking about increases in crop yields on the order of 85 to 100 per cent over the way food is being grown now. This is a scientific enterprise--it involves the systematic use of knowledge and is something that is an important part of what we have to contribute to the betterment of people's lives.

M: One last thing: Bové and Dufour have both mentioned that they are not necessarily anti-WTO and anti-global trade, they just feel that that organization has to be restructured. How do you think the rules of international trade and the WTO could be restructured to make farming more equitable and also safer?

BT: I think an equitable approach to international trade requires that trade be organized from the ground up rather than the top down. There are a wealth of examples of people and organizations, especially cooperatives, from around the world trading with each other in a mutually beneficial manner. The WTO was established from its beginnings in 1994 not to serve the interests of people and communities around the world, but rather to serve the interests of the largest international trading powers, such as the U.S. and the largest corporations to which those governments are beholden.

M: Like Monsanto.

BT: Like Monsanto, like Cargill in the grain trading business. I support the call of activists from all over the world, including many countries in the so-called developing world to abolish the WTO and replace it with an institution that could truly be accountable to people and communities around the world.

Tokar, Bové and Dufour will speak at Room H-110 in Concordia's Hall Building on Sept. 20 at 7pm Free

Radicalspeak

>> Other Concordia talks, events and presentations

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Concordia's orientation series of speakers has been underway for a week now, but some interesting speakers and information sessions remain. Besides the Tokar, Bové and Dufour talk, other presentations with a decidedly un-establishment-friendly slant will be continuing through to September 26. Here is a list of "also speaking," courtesy of QPIRG, CLAC and the CSU. Unless otherwise indicated, all events will take place in the Hall Building's Room H-110 at 7 p.m. All events are free.



September 13: Uprising in Bolivia

Juan Nivardo Rodriguez, a student organizer and activist from La Paz, speaks out in support of the campesino (peasant farmers) in their fight against the IMF and its role in the so-called "Water War."

September 14: Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) Solidarity event

A panel discussion will try to find bridges between the Palestinian question and the anti-global-capitalism movement. Vowing to take the "struggle to a global level," the panel will talk about ways to "organize against international repression in your own communities."

September 17: Ward Churchill: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Don't be fooled (again). Subtitled "Globalization, genocide and resistance," Churchill's talk will address the Amerindian question in the global capitalist context. Churchill, a Keetowah Cherokee, is an author, member of the AIM (American Indian Movement) leadership council and former national spokesperson for the Leonard Pelletier defence committee.

September 18: David Bernans launches Con U Inc.

CSU researcher-activist Bernans, who briefly taught in the Political Science department at Concordia, attacks the university's corporatization. By picking exclusively on Concordia he is able to offer a wealth of research showing how evil multinationals have infiltrated and subverted the once fiercely independent institutions of higher education.

September 19: Bringing together radical anti-capitalist student and union organizing

Dave Bleakney, of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, speaks on uniting two traditional strong bases of support for the left. Bleakney is also considered, according to series organizers, "an inspiration for all of those who are driving to fuck up the system from within."

September 25: Against Respectability: For Radical Queer Liberation Politics

New Socialist Group member Gary Kinsman, a queer liberation, global justice and social activist and author based in that hotbed of resistance and unrest, Sudbury, will speak on "Bridging the gap between radical and queer politics."

September 26: Radical Queer Politics

A five-person panel on bridging the gap (a different gap) between radical activism and queer and women's liberation. Featuring the Wemoons Army (who, according to their mission statement, "trains, educates, confronts, reports, agitates and mobilizes... to energize connections between revolutionary wemoon, to recruit and reproduce collectives and to build bridges between all oppressed affinity groups"), with the Blood Sisters and the CSU. At El Corazone, 176 Bernard W. 8 p.m. Free. There will also be a CSU General Assembly that day.