50 Reasons to Buy Fair Trade by Miles Litvinoff & John Madeley

Author:Miles Litvinoff & John Madeley [Litvinoff, Miles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2014-12-18T08:00:00+00:00

Among small-scale farmers in developing countries – the people the biotech companies say they are trying to help – as well as development charities and the general public, there’s widespread suspicion of GMOs and often strong opposition. A key objection for many is that GM farming strengthens the power of the agribusiness transnationals that develop and sell modified seeds, and weakens the ability of low-income rural communities to control their lives.

An investigation by Christian Aid concluded that GM crops offer “false promises” to farmers while giving “a handful of GM corporations … increasing control over the global food system”. The charity noted that “Too little is yet known about the possible environmental or ecological and health effects. Commercial and other interests are in danger of overriding public concern, democratic decision making and local control.”

Another development charity, ActionAid, has campaigned against the development and cultivation of GM coffee on the basis that it threatens to put “millions of smallholder growers out of business” by replacing traditional, small-scale production of good quality beans on family farms with industrial-type plantations.

GM coffee, developed by a Hawaii-based company, makes all the coffee berries ripen at the same time, but only when chemically sprayed. If this coffee became commercially cultivated, farmers would need to buy the seeds and chemical sprays every year. Less manual work would be needed, suiting larger-scale mechanised coffee growing rather than small family farms. “Small farmers will be squeezed out of the market with GM coffee,” says Dr Tewolde Egziabler, Ethiopia’s delegate to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. ActionAid, adds “This technology has the potential to devastate the lives of millions of growers throughout the developing world.”

GM cotton is another focus of concern. According to the Fairtrade Foundation, “Research to date indicates that the benefits are negligible. Indian farmers who planted [GM] cotton reported decreased average yields compared to conventional varieties.” The Foundation goes on:

There is also no evidence that GM cotton has resulted in the promised reduction in herbicide usage. GM seeds can cost up to ten times more that conventional cotton seeds and farmers are often compelled by biotechnology companies to purchase the associated farming inputs as a package. … This can lead them into long-term financial commitments which increase their indebtedness.

Some Indian farmers’ groups have taken to pulling up and burning trial plots of GM cotton to defend their livelihoods.

As for rice – which 2.5 billion people depend on as a staple food – leading Indian journalist and food activist Devinder Sharma has joined forces with Western campaigners in warning that control over rice through genetic manipulation and patents is passing into the hands of European and US transnationals. Sharma speaks of the danger of “daylight robbery” of the genetic wealth of developing countries by Western agribusiness.

Evidence of the potential health risks associated with GM crops has at times been suppressed. One well-known case is the work of leading researcher Dr Arpad Pusztai, who was hounded out of his post at the prestigious Rowett Research Institute in Scotland

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