WTO = World Tyranny Organization
The WTO (World Trade Organization) is threatening sanctions against the EU for the refusal of some member nations to allow genetically modified food products to be sold in their countries. For an organization that claims their mandate is to promote free trade, this is remarkable hypocritical. We said free, not forced!
In addition to the fact that the WTO’s version of free trade seems to equal “free to destroy the environment” and “free to exploit workers in 3rd world countries”, it looks like they want to add “free to force unwanted products down the throats of sovereign nations”. They claim France and Austria (the two main hold-outs on GMOs) aren’t within their rights to deny entry to Monsanto et al products because it hasn’t been shown that they are harmful to the consumer. And that’s exactly true, it hasn’t been shown. No one knows anything about them. There just hasn’t been the kind of long term studies to answer that question, and if the big ag companies have their way there never will be. Can you blame these countries for wanting to be on the safe side?
And aside from the effects/lack of effects of eating GMOs, there are a number of things that we already know GMOs do:
1: GMO strains encourage the growth and expansion of monocultures. Besides my personal distaste at the thought of everything being the same all the time, this allows for the possibility of wide-spread destruction of crops which would lead to famine. All it would take is one little virus, one little pest to wipe out a nation full of genetically modified clones. The vast majority of the corn in the US is GM, and the number of varieties used are decreasing everyday. With corn used in 3500 products in the US, from paper to virtually everything sweetened to tortillas, can you imagine the economic devestation that would occur if half our corn were wiped out?
2: GMOs enslave and destroy small and private farmers. GMOs and even just regular hybrids demolish the ability of farmers to store seeds to replant the next year with, forcing them to buy new seed every year. This is a big burden on farmers with already slim profit margins. In addition, many big buyers such as Nabisco will only buy certain strains of corn or potatoes (or whatever) for their products, forcing farmers to buy and grow GMO foods if they want to be able to sell them. GMO seed is considerably more expensive than other kinds of seed, and has strict laws about how it maybe use due to the patents held by the companies which engineered them. Even farmer who aren’t trying to use GMOs end up getting entangled, as in the case of Percy Schmeiser and many others who have found GMOs growing on their land without having planted them. They get the honor of being sued by the patent holder.
3: GMOs have a negative impact on the wildlife and the surrounding ecosystem. They cause a reduction in the number and variety of good creepy-crawlies in the soil, and a corresponding drop in songbirds and other fauna in the area. Although I haven’t found a study on it, I personally wouldn’t be shocked if the crash of our honeybee population is tied up with GMOs (pure speculation on my part).
I think that’s enough reasons not to want to get mixed-up with GMO foods, don’t you? And although there aren’t any conclusive studies on the the long term effects, smaller studies have shown that things can go very wrong when messing with the genetic code of plant. Plus I just feel there’s something intrinsically wrong with eating something that can express its own pesticide. But I guess most plants actually do that, just in a different. Still, it feels icky to me.
And when you get right down to it, it doesn’t really matter why France and Austria are against importing these foods. Whether it’s the ick factor, a moral issue like those I’ve mentioned above, or just because they don’t feel like it, nothing should be able to force a country to import or buy foods or goods it doesn’t want. If Canada decided by overwhelming popular vote to ban the color pink because they think it clashes with their flag, then they should be able to do so and to choose to no longer import anything pink. Now that would be silly and probably devestate their economy, but if that’s what they want then go for it. Now if 99% voted to ban a drug that would save the lives of 1% of their population, that would be another ethical issue and I’d say they were outside their rights. But this isn’t a medicine. This is a matter of what free trade and national sovereignty actually mean. I’d say the WTO needs to chew on that for a little while.
Oh this is an interesting issue. First of all though, I’m with you 100% on the absurdity of the WTO.
My day job is as a policy advisor for a trade association closely linked with the agriculture industry. GMOs are being talked about increasingly. I don’t like it, I agree with all the reasons for not going for GMOs that you’ve mentioned, but one thing I’m hearing more and more at conferences is “It’s probably the only way we can increase yields sufficiently to feed our exponentially increasing population”. I have a horrible feeling (unless some miracle technique comes along) that within 10 years we will have no choice but to go GM and accept the possible wiping out of an entire crop as an occupational hazard.
A problem facing livestock farmers in the UK is that we are not allowed to use GMO feed. And it’s going to become so expensive to find/import non-GM feed, that it will become more cost-effective to import the meat itself. And we’ll be importing meat from the US, Brazil and Thailand. All countries that feed their animals on GM feed.
So we’re cut between a rock and a hard place. It’s a nightmare situation for all involved. But the people I look after have said they’ll only move to GMOs if 1) the public demand it and 2) it is legalised in the EU.
And if the public do not want to buy GMOs then there’s not a lot the industry can do about it.
Oh wow, that’s scary! The really sucky part is that I would boycott GMOs in an instant is I could figure out how. But we have ZERO labelling laws here. There is absolutely no way (and I’ve tried) to find out what produce and other products contain Monsanto specials and which don’t. For all know, my strawberries might (and almost certainly do) contain an unhealthy dose of fish genes. Kinda puts the vegetarians in a moral quandary too, don’t it?
It’s appalling that you don’t have any labelling laws for GMOs. I know there is no absolute guarantee that a product won’t have a GMO in it (we’ve banned American long-grain rice for over a year since a GMO that shouldn’t have been there was found in a batch - but the source of the rice was non-GM), but it should be possible to say “From genetically modified crops”, “Grown in proximity to genetically modified crops” or “Not grown in proximity to genetically modified crops”, and similar for the livestock industry. I’m not that clued-up on my EU labelling law, but I think we still ban all GMOs. I’m actually a bit surprised that France and Austria are the biggest opponents, because I thought we were pretty anti-GM for now.
I know, isn’t it? Now, according to UDSA organic standards products labelled organic can’t be GM, but the definition of what actually is GM is a little shady. But if it’s not organic (and probably sometimes when it is!), anything goes. Currently, cloned meat and I believe also milk from cloned cows is allowed on the market and is not labelled (although since it’s not labelled, I don’t know how much there is yet - proabably not that much). Apparently enough people are pissed about this that the FDA is “looking into” labelling or at least tracking these cloned animal products.