Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (58 page)

Unfortunately Greenpeace and its friends succeeded in getting a precautionary principle enshrined in the Cartagena Protocol, the international treaty that sets out the rules for adoption of and trade in GM seeds. This has made it possible for activists to prevent many varieties of nutritionally improved crops from being planted, even when there is no evidence any harm could result. It will be some time before the international community wakes up and realizes the calamity that it has allowed to occur. But it will inevitably recognize that a great humanitarian error has been made in denying a cure for nutrient-deficiency-related disease in hundreds of millions of people.

One can predict with some certainty that the area planted in GM varieties will continue to increase. Many new traits, including nutritional improvements, drought tolerance, salt tolerance, enhanced nitrogen uptake, disease resistance, etc., have been developed in a number of crops, including beets, cassava, papaya, potatoes, eggplant, wheat, and rice. Most of these have yet to be introduced due to opposition from anti-GM campaigners. Countries once opposed to GM crops are gradually changing their positions and embracing them as a key part of agricultural policy. The benefits are so obvious when weighed against the nonexistent “risks” that anyone with a clear understanding of the precautionary approach would embrace the technology. While caution is always warranted when introducing new science, there is nothing in the evidence to justify the zero-tolerance policy adopted by Greenpeace and others.

In a May 2010 article in
Forbes
Magazine, Henry I. Miller does an excellent job of deconstructing a biased article in the
New York Times
.
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A read of Miller’s piece will give you an excellent example of how bad journalism can turn a positive story into a negative one, and by quoting sources in the zero-tolerance camp, the Times can make it appear that GM crops are a failure rather than the success they really are.
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The adoption of GM varieties has been an uphill battle on the part of farmers around the world. The anti-GM folks attempt to depict farmers as gullible dupes, who are forced by Monsanto and other “seed giants” to buy GM seeds, thus destroying their “traditional agricultural practices.” This is nonsense of course. Farmers are free to buy seed from whomever they wish, as long as it is legal, and sometimes even when it isn’t. If they wish they can start their own seed company. In the name of “free choice,” activists work to deny farmers the choice by campaigning to make GM illegal. They were particularly successful with this approach in Europe, where incidences of mad-cow disease and chemical contamination has sensitized the public to food scares. European agriculture is shaped more by social policy than by economic necessity. Farmers are paid not to grow food, as there is a regional surplus. Those who do grow food receive large subsidies. So European farmers do not have much incentive to improve their yields or profits.

The European Union (EU) established a de facto moratorium on GM crops in 1998, citing the precautionary principle and unspecified threats to human health and the environment. This caused many countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to place bans on growing GM crops for fear their food exports to Europe would be embargoed. In 2005 the EU lifted the moratorium, but many restrictions remain in place and a number of EU countries are defying the decision. The fear of GM crops in Europe, where there is a surplus of food, has serious impacts on developing countries, where food shortages and nutritional deficiencies are common. This is where the campaign against genetic modification has done real harm. Whereas the big money crops have been able to power through the pressure groups and adopt many improved varieties, the traits that would improve nutrition for hundreds of millions of people in the developing countries do not have as much economic muscle behind them.
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The most serious nutritional problems in the world stem from
micronutrient deficiencies
. Most people, unless they live in a zone of conflict or disaster, get enough calories (energy) from carbohydrates in the form of sugar, starch, and oils. They are not “starving,” but rather they lack key minerals, vitamins, and amino acids. Among the main micronutrient deficiencies are iron (especially in women), vitamin A, vitamin E, and certain amino acids that make up proteins. Most of this deficiency occurs in the rice-eating cultures of Asia and Africa because rice has so few nutrients other than starch. The cultures that get their carbohydrates from wheat, potatoes, and corn rarely lack micronutrients because those crops are richer in vitamins and minerals.

The inhumanity of the anti-GM stance can be no better illustrated than with the example of Golden Rice. About two billion people eat rice as their primary supply of carbohydrates for energy. Most of these people are healthy because they can afford a variety of foods, including greens, fruits, and vegetables that provide them with the necessary vitamins, minerals, and protein. But the World Health Organization estimates that 124 million people suffer from a vitamin A deficiency and one to two million die each year from this deficiency. It is therefore almost as deadly as malaria. The deficiency results in 250,000 and 500,000 irreversible cases of blindness annually, mainly in children, half of whom die within a year of becoming blind.
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Most of these people live in urban slums where poverty restricts their diet to a daily ration of rice.

In 1992, as molecular biologists were beginning to succeed with recombinant DNA technology, which would eventually become known as genetic engineering,
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two humanitarian scientists set to work in Switzerland. Dr. Ingo Potrykus
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of the Institute of Plant Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Dr. Peter Beyer
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of the University of Freiburg were aware of the tragedy of vitamin A deficiency. For eight years they worked in their labs to engineer a rice plant that would solve this problem. In 2000 they published an article in the journal
Science
that indicated they had created a variety of rice containing beta-carotene, the precursor to vitamin A.
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They did this by inserting a gene from corn into the rice’s DNA, the gene that gives the kernels their bright yellow color. The yellow color in daffodils, corn, and mangoes, and the orange color in carrots, yams, and pumpkins are caused by the presence of beta-carotene. The addition of beta-carotene to rice gives it a golden color and provides enough of the nutrient to prevent vitamin A deficiency and blindness.

Common white rice and Golden Rice

The invention of Golden Rice was hailed as a great breakthrough in the fight against malnutrition.
Time
magazine carried a cover photo of Dr. Potrykus posing beside Golden Rice plants with the headline, “This Rice Could Save a Million Kids a Year.” The subheading carried the ominous warning: “But protestors believe such genetically modified foods are bad for us and our planet.” Thus began the campaign, led by Greenpeace, to discredit both Golden Rice and its inventors. Greenpeace dubbed Golden Rice “fool’s gold” and claimed you would have to eat nine kilos of it to get enough Vitamin A to prevent blindness.
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This was a lie, of course, but it was picked up by media around the world and a negative tone was soon established. Dr. Potrykus found himself having to defend his invention against these phony accusations. Greenpeace threatened to “rip the rice from the ground” if anyone dared plant it. They claimed that Golden Rice was merely a front for multinationals like Monsanto who were using it to gain acceptance of their evil plot to control the seed industry.
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I met Dr. Potrykus at a conference in Helsinki shortly after he became embroiled in controversy. He was clearly distressed by the vehemence and ignorance of the anti-GM movement. An otherwise mild-mannered, typically tweedy research scientist had been turned into a radical activist himself. Greenpeace now claimed that Golden Rice was a “technical failure” and that it would be much more effective if people with a vitamin A deficiency were to take vitamin pills and create home gardens, where they could grow leafy vegetables that are rich in beta-carotene. From their plush international headquarters on the canals of Amsterdam, the Greenpeace campaigners ignore the fact that the reason people suffer from the deficiency is because they are too poor to afford pills or garden space. And Greenpeace offers no aid to these people from its bulging bank accounts. Dr. Potrykus was moved to state “If you plan to destroy test fields to prevent responsible testing and development of Golden Rice for humanitarian purposes, you will be accused of contributing to a crime against humanity. Your actions will be carefully registered and you will, hopefully, have the opportunity to defend your illegal and immoral actions in front of an international court.”
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I wholeheartedly agreed with him and seconded the motion.

Greenpeace has the nerve to resort to the “precautionary principle” to defend its zero-tolerance position on Golden Rice. Greenpeace says, “Golden Rice could breed with wild and weedy relatives to contaminate wild rice forever. If there were any problems the clock could not be turned back.”
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So Greenpeacers think that if a corn gene got into wild rice that would be worse than half a million blind children every year? What possible harm could rice plants cause with beta-carotene in them, a compound that occurs naturally in every green plant? All rice plants, including wild rice, contain beta-carotene, but it is in their leaves, where it provides no nutritional benefits . Carotenes are not only essential for eyesight in all animals, they are also one of the most important antioxidants in our diet. I challenge Greenpeace and the rest of the anti-GM movement to explain how beta-carotene or any other aspect of Golden Rice could have a negative impact on human health or the environment.

It is clear that Greenpeace’s opposition to Golden Rice is a desperate attempt to justify its zero-tolerance approach to genetic modification. Greenpeace knows that if there is one good GM variety, there will be others. Then my old organization would need to have a rational discussion about the merits of each variety, like the rest of us mere mortals. Instead, it prefers to stand on high in judgment, even though it condemns millions to needless suffering and death. For this reason, on this subject, I condemn its actions. In Dr. Potrykus’ own words:

Golden Rice fulfils all the wishes the GMO opposition had earlier expressed in their criticism of the use of the technology, and it thus nullifies all the arguments against genetic engineering with plants in this specific example.

Golden Rice has not been developed by and for industry.

It fulfils an urgent need by complementing traditional interventions.

It presents a sustainable, cost-free solution, not requiring other resources.

It avoids the unfortunate negative side effects of the Green Revolution.

Industry does not benefit from it.

Those who benefit are the poor and disadvantaged.

It is given free of charge and restrictions to subsistence farmers.

It does not create any new dependencies.

It will be grown without any additional inputs.

It does not create advantages to rich landowners.

It can be re-sown every year from the saved harvest.

It does not reduce agricultural biodiversity.

It does not affect natural biodiversity.

There is, so far, no conceptual negative effect on the environment.

There is, so far, no conceivable risk to consumer health.

It was not possible to develop the trait using traditional methods.