Consumers & Farmers Worldwide Rejecting Frankenfoods and Monsanto

www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/13/1084289813774.html
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
May 14, 2004

Editorial: Genetically Modified (GM) foods in retreat

The purveyors of genetic technology in food are backing off. Non-GM crops
have been infected by modified ones. Foods have been found to contain GM
corn not approved for use in foods. GM crops have been planted by mistake.
Governments in Europe have repeatedly rejected GM crops on safety grounds.
Attempts by Monsanto, the world's largest biotechnology company, to grow GM
fruit and vegetables have failed. Now, Monsanto has stopped trying to
develop a genetically modified wheat for the North American market, and has
ended research into GM canola in Australia.

The failures are Monsanto's own fault. From the start, it raised hackles with
its argument that it was trying to feed the world's poor. That was given the
lie by Monsanto's initial decision to render seeds sterile so farmers in the
developing world would have to buy them anew each year, and by its
concentration on crops grown mainly in the Americas - corn, soy, canola and
cotton. Farmers also found that any money they saved on reduced fertiliser
use was spent on Monsanto's high seed prices. Its failed development of
Roundup Ready wheat was typical. Monsanto's GM wheat would have been no more
disease-resistant, nor have had better milling qualities, nor fewer
allergens, than other wheat. It would simply have allowed farmers to switch
from a host of chemicals to a specific herbicide, Roundup, made by Monsanto.

Monsanto's other main problem has been its failure to listen to consumers.
Governments in the United States and in a few other places, such as
Australia, have been highly supportive of the company and its attempts to
place its products in farms and supermarkets. But consumers in most of the
world have been wary - they have told their governments, farmers, food
industries and pollsters that they are concerned about the environmental
effects of GM crops, and worried that the health effects of GM foods are
just not known.

Genetic modification of crops has not disappeared, and will not. Farmers in
Argentina, Canada, China and the US grow large amounts of canola, corn,
cotton and soy. The products of these crops end up in clothing, in oils or as
animal feeds. There are small quantities of GM squash and papaya available
in the US, but such GM food crops are rare. For now, it seems, the technology
is restricted to crops people do not have to eat.

If companies such as Monsanto want to change this, they will have to go
beyond lobbying governments. They will have to listen to consumers. They
will have to produce foods with characteristics that people want - pipless
oranges, tastier tomatoes, less allergenic wheat - rather than
characteristics which line their pockets. Then they will have to carry out
trials of such crops in human beings to show that the food is safe. To date,
Monsanto has argued that GM foods are safe because they have not been
proven unsafe. That may have convinced the Australian and US governments, but it
will not convince consumers.

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