This summit gives social and environmental justice movements in North America a unique opportunity to converge, to act in solidarity with movements around the world, and to highlight some of the most pressing issues of our time: the threat of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) to ecosystems and human health; the ever-widening gap between the very rich and very poor; the increasing use of trade agreements to subvert democratic process; and the unchecked power of multinational corporations to lay claim to our food, our farms, and our future.
Since its inception at the Uruguay Round, the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has been a disaster for rural communities and food security the world over. Because of contentions around subsidies, GMOs, and liberalization's impact on trade in agriculture, the AoA is understood by many analysts as the most volatile element of the current WTO negotiations. WTO negotiators failed to reach agreements by the March 31 deadline for modalities in agriculture, leaving prospects for an AoA in Cancœn dismal. Internal discord at the WTO over US and European Union (EU) subsidies in agriculture and the inharmonious regulations of GMOs, could be the lynchpin for derailing the entire WTO process.
USÊTrade Representative Zoelleck has called the EU's ban on GMOs "immoral" and Secretary Veneman recently proclaimed that "our patience is just running out." But just before the Iraq war, an anonymous senior White House official explained, "There is no point in testing Europeans on food while they are being tested on Iraq."
Sacramento is essentially a stage to showcase and force the "benefits" of GMOs on southern nations, to show up the EU and condemn its precautionary stance on GMOs, to assert US dominance in the global trade agenda, and to push for a biotech future in agriculture, aquaculture and forestry.
USAID, a co-sponsor of the Sacramento event, was in the international spotlight last summer for its aggressive use of "food aid" to southern African nations to push GMOs. With the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development as a backdrop, this tool of US agribusiness insisted on dumping whole GMO corn kernels on the famine-stricken nations of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and MalawiÑnations that were forced to choose between genetically modified foods that were unfit for human consumption, and starvation. They were also being forced to open their markets to GMOs by default, as once these whole kernels hit the ground, they could cross-pollinate and pollute non-modified varieties, as has happened in Oaxaca, Mexico.
USAID, under the guidance of the Bush administration, recently launched a new regime of aid and development policy under the rubric of the Millennium Challenge Account. The new policy, "Foreign Aid in the National Interest: Promoting Freedom, Security and Opportunity," is being promoted as the "third major foreign aid policy statement since the second world war." The plan works in concert with the IMF and World Bank to outline a policy of granting aid based on compliance with free market reforms. USAID is yet another vehicle for US and corporate interests to further tighten the noose on southern nations who would think of straying away from colonial relations with the north, hesitate to privatize, or embrace land reform or strong labor and environmental laws.
Secretary Veneman is a former lawyer for Monsanto, and a key player in the battles over introduction of new GMOsÑlike genetically modified wheat, fish, and trees. Genetically modified canola has destroyed the ability of the organic and non-GMO canola farmers of the Canadian prairie to produce their crops. Canola, like wheat, has many close wild cousins, and now wild plants have become Roundup-resistant "super weeds." Wheat farmers in the midwest of North America are fighting tooth and nail to stop the commercialization of genetically modified wheatÑas it will cross-pollinate with native grasses, and possibly other food grains like barely and oats.
And then there is the push for "biopharming"Ñthe insertion of drug genes into farm crops like corn. The biotech industry says it will save the family farm, but this very technology poses massive risks to the human food supplyÑthe ProdiGene scandal of late 2002, where pharmacrops were harvested from the field along with human food, is a case in point.
Field trials of genetically engineered trees are in hundreds of locations in the US, and the industry is developing trees which are "Round-up Ready" or have reduced lignin content (the trait that makes trees strong and stiff). While genetically modified corn pollen can travel by winds or direct seed movement for a few miles, the pollen of trees travels hundreds of miles. And as if that weren't enough, the Bush administration is seeking approval for the commercialization of genetically engineered fishÑsalmon with super growth hormones. Commercialization of genetically engineered insects and mammals aren't far behind.
The WTO meeting in Cancœn is very important for movementsÊseeking a democratic and ecological future. Cancœn will see the negotiation of agreements on services (water, health care, and education); agriculture, investment, intellectual property, and the gamut of liberalization that puts corporate profit before all else.
While the aftermath of the war in Iraq steals the headlines, the trade war over GMOs, agriculture, and market access between the EU and the US is brewing and will unfold in Sacramento and Cancœn. And then there's the looming FTAA, and the fast track to CAFTA. The Sacramento summit gives us an opportunity to tell the world that the hungry must have food, that we will build democracy and economic justice, and we will reclaim an ecological future. It is a moment to reject biotech, indict neoliberalism and to struggle for humanity. It is a moment we cannot ignore.
"Primarily financed by USAID, food aid is becoming the biggest market mechanism for genetically modified foods from the US which have been rejected elsewhere. The undue pressure to import genetically modified corn is not just promoting the dumping of hazardous products that cannot be sold through free markets, the fact that this corn could be contaminated with the Bt Starlink corn amounts to feeding our children and nursing mothers a toxic cattle feed."
National Alliance of Women for Food Rights (India), March 7, 2003
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2003
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