Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Global Harvest Initiative Seeks Not to Feed People, But to Bolster Big Ag Profits
The Global Harvest Initiative, founded by agribusiness interests DuPont, Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, and John Deere, will meet today beginning at 9:00 am for a daylong symposium at which the focus is said to be on finding “ways to sustainably double agricultural output to meet rapidly growing global demand as anticipated by the United Nations.” Are big corporations finally seeking to do what is right by the nearly billion people who are currently food insecure in the world, or is this another instance of corporate green washing bought into by our politicians? Indeed, this so-called initiative needs a bit of parsing.
Hunger looks on the surface to be the most bipartisan policy issue on our collective plates. We can all agree that the fact that hunger persists today is a global tragedy and that something needs to be done about it. But from there the discussion diverges into two distinct schools of thought.
The thinking that has been dominant since Norman Borlaug was sent to Mexico with his hybrid wheat in the 1940s has been that hunger is related to a lack of food supply. Those who espouse this thinking believe that through research and technology taking place behind the closed doors of corporations, this crisis can be solved. But despite a lax regulatory environment, bucket loads of marketing that confuses the public on the issues, a revolving door bringing former private sector employees into positions of policy making, and control over the research of their techniques and products — corporations still have yet to find any long term solutions to our global hunger woes. In fact, more people are food insecure today than they were when Borlaug (who died just over a week ago) took up the hunger gauntlet, and the argument could be made that it was his work was a short term solution that directly contributed to growing the population, increasing and pushing off the inevitable suffering to the future.
The Global Harvest Initiative falls squarely into this first category. DuPont, Monsanto, ADM and John Deere realize the days of jaw-dropping profits are numbered if they don’t change tactics. So under the guise of humanitarianism, these giants have come together and invited receptive politicians like Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) with the distinct strategy of furthering their aims worldwide: to these corporations, the US has been conquered by industrial agriculture (it may be worth noting that 40 million US citizens are currently food insecure) — so now they must spread what isn’t working here abroad to continue to make ever larger profits.
The opposing ideology on creating food security in the world is to place the focus on equity — when food is first a right, not just a commodity, we stop thinking about it solely in economic terms. Therefore the focus shifts to creating the pathways for access to food — because right now there is enough food grown in the world to feed the world, it is just not getting into mouths.
By their own admission, these four companies are spending “$9 million a day in research and development.” After all the money that has been spent on shiny new technologies, we are still far from feeding the hungry. In addition, the USDA’s grants for research almost always require matching funds of 50% or more, meaning a grantee often goes knocking on the doors of the private sector, which is willing to invest in research that suits its interests. We must ask ourselves: has leaving research up to the big corporations historically resulted in an equal share of wealth?
A reliance on technology alone means that local, not-so-profitable means of addressing hunger are ignored. Most often, farmers in developing nations cite infrastructure, like new roads, and access to markets as the biggest barriers to food access. The Green Revolution assumed that genetically modified seed would save the day, but in fact it has only created the conditions that increased soil and environmental degradation, contributed to health issues in local populations, and produced more dependence on petroleum and corporate products. Is it fair for one country to come into another with the products of its economy and thereby create future dependence when there are more self-sufficient, locally adapted answers on the ground?
Lugar has been in the Senate for over 30 years, and serves as the ranking Republican member of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Hunger, Nutrition and Family Farms, and is also a ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. In that time, he has become the go-to person on hunger issues. Everyone in the Senate defers to Lugar on hunger, and most have been unwilling to stand up to him, even when he is making a bad decision — like prioritizing GMO technology in the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security bill. (Check out Elanor Starmer’s take on the bill here.) Lugar is also a big recepient of agribusiness campaign donations — he received $376,000 from agribusiness (dwarfed only by the catagory ‘other’ $594K, finance $587K and lawyers & lobbyists $482K) between 2003-2008 according to OpenSecrets.org. And today, he will be the keynote speaker at the Global Harvest Initiative symposium, further displaying his support for the industrial agriculture complex.
Another speaker is Dan Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture under Bill Clinton who originally signed off on GM seeds as “substantially equivalent” to other seeds, and who continues to be a GMO apologist a decade later. To that end, he will be giving a speech entitled, “The Politics of Agriculture: Breaking the Commercial Vs. Small-holder Myth.”
Also look out for former Gates Foundation ‘New Green Revolution’ pusher Rajiv Shah, who now serves as Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics and as Chief Scientist at the USDA speaking about the role of technology in food security, and then stay tuned for what promises to be a boilerplate CEO panel discussion.
You can watch the meeting yourself on the live webcast, beginning at 9am today and going through 5pm. Then, contact your senators and tell them to take on Lugar’s status quo, agribusiness-as-saviour-for-starving-masses ideology.
- Posted in
32 Comments so far
Show AllThe "Global Harvest Initiative" is more Orwelian New Speak and not to be believed for one minute. The only harvest they are interested in is profit, bottom line. Who do you trust....politicians, corporate CEO's, lawyers, media shills....or your local organic farmer? Our "leaders" are making bad decisions which affect everone on the planet. Millions spent on "research" when a simple road would be a real solution. Technicians in lab coats with test tubes can't
possibly be in harmony with the biodiverse life forces of earth, sun, rain, insects, and people. More and more complex chemical "trigger" schemes are a dangerous farce, when it can be shown that simple means such as more spacing between plants, and a little compost can revolutionize yields of rice in Indonesia. Luger is from Indiana, the corn state, get it? Money talks, exposing the true motives behind the curtain.
The biggest problems with a massive agricultural conversion away from gm technologies and into organic are the reduced food supplies and increasing cost. Making food availability a "right" sounds great, but would in actuality lead to food shortages, and probably severe shortages. The best and easiest step to keep food abundant and affordable is to end subsidies for turning food into fuel (eg etha nol). {Edit: it seems silly that I had to add a space in the middle of the last word in order to get by the spam filter}
You are falling for the biotech myth of increased yields from genetically modified seed. It has been shown again and again that there is no increase in food grown per acre from genetically modified seed. GMO plants tolerate being sluiced with herbicides, allowing the makers of it to sell more Roundup, and GMO seeds are altered to contain pesticide in every cell, which will ultimately cause pests to evolve to be immune to the pesticide, an inevitable problem to which Monsanto has admitted. Organic agriculture, on the other hand, does produce more food per acre, through soil building, companion planting and the selection of plants that do well in a region. The higher price of organic in the public is due to the hegemony of big agribusiness, which can dump government subsidized commodity foods into the domestic and international markets at predatory prices.
As I said, gm corn yields are better than conventional hybrids and TREMEN DOUSLY better than heirloom open pollinated types. This is fact. The inevitable pesticide immunity problem is currently being addressed in multiple ways, which greatly slows this threat. If it becomes too much of a problem, we can always return to conventional pesticides which are generally more toxic, especially to the farmer/applier. Everyone is free to pretend that organic agriculture could supplant our current system, but with only a little thought the enormity of change is clearly a severely daunting enterprise. [Gadfree, now I had to put a space in the capitalized word to avoid the spam filter. Is this really necessary or could we get a less annoying filter at CD?]
Preacher Greg from the Church of Monsanto
GREG While it is true that CORN yields are slightly better for genetically modified seed, the fact of the matter is that studies have shown again and again that organic methods can produce equally as well as conventional farming. But yields, though comparable, are just part of the picture. Conventional farming is very detrimental to the environment. For instance, fertilizer runoff from conventional agriculture is the chief culprit in creating dead zones—low oxygen areas where marine life cannot survive. Conventional farming also causes soil erosion, greenhouse gas emissions, increased pest resistance and loss of biodiversity.
Truly spoken like a Monsanto troll, with half truths and half lies.
Organic growing is the only way to produce more food with less harm to the stressed ecology of this planet.
Greg,
Are you a large-acreage farmer yourself?
There are other ways to treat large acreages of corn to prevent insect damage. Take a look at this report:
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/7_10_99/bob1.htm
OTOH, weed infestations killed by RoundUp, which RU-ready corn seed was created to survive, can certainly be treated the old-fashioned way, with a tractor pulling a harrower between the rows. The remaining weeds in the row itself will absolutely not destroy a corn crop, particularly if it's close-planted as much corn is today.
I agree that we plant WAY too much corn, the majority of which is not used for eating but for other purposes. We don't really know what the ultimate effects of global warming will do to crops world-wide, but there is at least one example of a culture that depended almost exclusively on cultivated corn for its survival with 90% of its diet in corn -- the native American Mississippian tribes in what is now the southeastern US. When the weather failed, these native Americans starved and died in droves, along with other native American cultures that traded with them because the corn failed everywhere for many years.
In the long view, agricultural diversity is critical to our survival and the survival of humanity in the world.
I was a moderately large farmer. Now I'm a smallish, no-til farmer. When I was younger, I used to spend many days cultivating corn. Back then we applied herbicides, but still had substantial weed problems such as quackgrass and giant ragweed. Quackgrass would especially cause serious yield loss. We used to apply 5 pounds of atrazine in order to kill it. That was a long-lasting chemical that worked its way into the ground water. I've drank a lot of it over the years because of our shallow well. I like no-til. It keeps a blanket on the soil and reduces erosion. Adding more cultivation to fight weeds will increase erosion and ultimately deplete the soil. Some farmers around here who tried organic farming following having land in the government 10 year conservation reserve would til, til, til, to try to kill weeds. They generally had poor success and quit.
Quantity vs. quality. GM = nutritionaly deficient food. Furthermore, pesticide or "Round-up ready" resistance genetic modification means that the plant produces its own pesticide, and this goes into your gut when you eat it, and thrives there, killing off beneficial flora, for the rest of your miserable life. Thanks for caring, Big Ag.
Bt corn does not kill beneficial intestinal flora, however it does:
. Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)-spliced corn and crops pose a mortal
threat to organic and sustainable (low-chemical input) agriculture,
since they may soon destroy the effectiveness of organic farmers' most
important biopesticide. In its non-GE, natural Bt spray form, Bacillus
thuringiensis is the most important pest control agent in organic
agriculture, with yearly sales in the US alone of $60 million. This
non-GE spray form of Bt is applied externally and evaporates within
2-7 days. Scientists predict that the super-potent, long lasting toxin
found in Bt gene-spliced corn and other plants are likely to give rise
to Superpests such as corn ear-worms which will be immune to the
natural organic Bt sprays.
. Bt-spliced crops such as corn damage the soil food web, killing
beneficial soil microorganisms and reducing soil fertility. Bt corn
leaches its powerful genetically engineered poison into the soil (a
toxin which differs considerably from the naturally occurring Bt soil
bacteria) and remains toxic up to eight months, even after being
plowed under the soil.
. Bt-spliced crops kill off natural predators and disrupt the balance
among insects, leading to pest infestations.
. Bt-spliced crops kill beneficial insects such as lacewings and
ladybugs.
. Bt-spliced crops, due to increased insect mortality, reduce the food
supply for birds and other insect predators such as bats.
. Bt-corn pollen (ingested along with other Bt-contaminated corn
tissue) kills monarch butterflies and related species, such as the
endangered Karner Blue butterfly.
Do keep in mind that without the gm crops, a farmer must choose to either spray more chemicals that are potentially damaging to the applier or let the bugs gnaw his profits or if the pest (plague) is virulent enough, end his career (and for many, also a way of life). Of course I don't know if the long-term effects of gm crops will prove to be overly detrimental or not, but I do know they seem to be less lethal in the short-term and way more convenient.
Whenever giant corporations use public posturings of "helping people", "feeding the poor" and "making a better world", you can be sure that they are substituting this language for that of profit driven avarice. You can be sure that when these corporate holy people cause harm and deprivation in the world, they will use the "we're just a business, after all" posture. Hunger belongs to politics. The world has 6 billion and grows enough food for 9 billion now. Dupont, Monsanto and ADM are not giving seed to the world's hungry people, or land to grow food, or money to buy food, nor do they give a fig for the politics of hunger, poverty and injustice, just as the bible thumpers who deliver goodie baskets to the slums during the holiday season will be first in line to vote against any change in government policy or law that might empower people to rise out of their poverty.
Sioux
BLISS DOUBT: Spot on analysis. Well-said.
If it weren't for DuPont, industrial hemp would have been legal to grow and cultivate in the US. Thanks to overtaxing and then outlawing that plant, we have nothing but crude crap to put up with ! And now ADM, a proud King Corn weasel, can happily harm Mother Earth with all that corn when hemp could have been grown in its place. The more I learn about hemp, the angrier I feel that we're cheating ourselves like this.
"Are big corporations finally seeking to do what is right by the nearly billion people who are currently food insecure in the world"
It's impossible for corporations to do what is right. The far-left vision for what is right is food independence, and general independence, for all people on the planet. Corporations cannot contribute to this agenda. Corporations' top priority is to concentrate power, which creates mass dependence. Thus corporations are a key problem, and not part of the solution.
Food independence and general independence across the planet require the people place their hopes in nobody but themselves, and their local communities, and tentatively enjoying benefits from a global network chartered to serve them, but not dependent on that.
Can you devise such a network that supports local economic/political independence worldwide? And prevent its corruption? The people have to learn to depend first on themselves, then their local communities, and lastly on the global network, but only tentatively, which prevents its corruption.
Now let's get specific: We demand land, water, food, material and fuel rights for all Also, education, healthcare, shelter and transport rights for all. All through independent local small-scale production. Enterprise size and asset ownership limited to ten man-powers. Looks like a wrap. Get to work, people!
OK, I know many posters at CD can only wrap their minds around big corporate scheme and device conspiracies, 9-11 conspiracies that sometimes even leave out the planes and substitute missiles and implosions, and quite a few other huge, vast imaginations, but when it comes to moving organic agriculture from a minor aspect of American agriculture to the dominate method of producing food, do any of you have clue one concerning the tremendous amount of difficulty involved? Most farmers who try it on anything but a very small scale soon give up in frustration. Fighting the weeds is horrendous. Trying to maintain fertility levels on millions of acres is a tremendous challenge. Besides growing gm crops, I have a couple acres of gardens and have applied no herbicides on them in decades. You would not believe the amount of time I spend pulling and hoeing weeds. I mostly don't mind the work, but I believe most people would grow weary in a hurry. I do this to limit the toxic substances that invade our bodies to at least a small degree. Most humans can handle quite a large load of natural and unnatural toxic crap, but there's certainly a limit. I have NO qualms about tossing some commercial fertilizer on my gardens. And the food tastes fantastic!
Greg
I am a gardener, too, who aims for organic practices. But it just isn't always possible, so I agree with you (though not about many GM crops). What we should aim for is *earth-sustainable* agriculture, which does not prohibit judicious use of chemicals as long as they do not poison the earth, our water supply, or our air. There are no standards for use of organic pesticides, for instance, and they can be just as poisonous to the earth and humans as chemical pesticides.
But the point of the report is that the joined forces of agribusiness intend to keep a firm control on the world's food supply, and that makes me angry. There is no reason why there cannot be a world-wide sharing of seeds and plants among ordinary citizens, leaving out agribusiness altogether. Many of us grow open-pollinated vegetables, non-hybrids, which "come true" from the seeds they produce unlike hybrid versions. We already trade these saved seeds with others -- it costs only a postage stamp, and think of the 50-60 seeds in ONE tomato or pepper fruit that could easily be given to ten to fifteen others to start their own plants!
I'd like to see an international organization that has researched what foodstuffs will grow in geographic areas all over the world enable people to send their extra seeds to anyone beyond their own borders who needs them. This is not an option for many countries right now that prohibit anyone but agribusiness from introducing seeds into a population. In the past the reason has been partially to avoid spreading plant diseases, but that's easy to avoid.
All seeds can be made safe from plant diseases by just rinsing them in a very weak solution of bleach and water -- the seed germ inside is sterile; if present, diseases exist on the seed covers and the rinse kills them.
Coupled with education about soil care and adding everything in the environment that's organic to the soil to keep it healthy and productive, people in many parts of the world would not have to go hungry.
It's really time to keep agribusiness and corporatism out of politics and the world's problems unless they wish to contribute to the solution of those problems without making a profit. Free. Not a single string attached. No political or financial rewards.
We have a good outfit called 'seed savers' near by in Decorah, IA. Personally, I generally choose to spend a bit of cash for hybrid seeds, because many are truly improvements on older, traditional varieties. For instance, some of the squash and edible pea pods are amazingly tasty. I like innovation and new stuff. There are risks, but also rewards.
Are you aware that most hybridization efforts for fruit and vegetables at least are aimed at making the produce more productive and shippable to markets? Thus, we have hybrid tomatoes in supermarkets picked when green that taste like cardboard since they never ripen -- they're gassed to redness instead. Most of the hybridization is aimed to help agribusiness, not the consumer's desire for taste OR nutrition.
Seed savers organizations are great for people living in the US, but I meant similar organizations that operate on an international level with the barriers to seed-sharing removed.
Hybridization has evolved to fill lots of marketable niches. For several years now gourmets and individual gardening lovers have been snapping up some of the excellent new introductions. If you can spare $1.50 or $2 for a seed packet, it's often times very worthwhile.
In some cases, yes, but let me repeat: the majority of corporate hybridization is aimed at agribusiness interests and not the at-home needs of consumers -- what the food is like when it's on the table, though it may be gorgeous in supermarkets.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Edible+history:+discovering+the+benefits+of+heirloom+fruits+and...-a0132467070
I know many gardeners who hybridize their own produce, aiming to create vegetables that thrive in their particular environment, are productive, and taste good. Agribusiness cannot do this because they aim at large-market sales like corporate farming enterprises, not the best produce for particular areas. Growing conditions in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota, for instance, are incredibly different.
I grow a few hybrids, mostly corn, and Brandy Boy tomatoes, but I prefer heirloom or open-pollinated vegetables so I can save, plant, and trade the seeds of those plants that have done well in my climate and soil conditions. They do just as well and sometimes better than hybrids. And I would do almost anything to keep from paying my money to corporate seed companies because I think they're aiming for control of the world's food supply. Who controls the food is far more powerful than any government, and I don't want to be part of giving them that power.
Some of those corporate seed companies are really little more than mom n pop operations. There's lots of variety out there in companies and in seeds.
Greg
What's the point? The mom and pop seed companies may be incorporated but they are certainly NOT "seed corporations" and are not competition for seed corporations like Monsanto and DuPont. Most of the large commercial seed companies, like Park Seeds and Burpee, are now owned by agribusiness and are no longer independent of them. The largest independent seed company I know about is Harris-Moran. Mom and Pop sellers are the ones I buy my seeds from, including OP seeds I want to try and can't find in trade, with an occasional order from Park Seeds for Brandy Boy. The small companies usually have good prices for seeds and shipping and excellent customer service.
We need to stop using massive amounts of fertilizer, herbicide, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics etc. because they are polluting our drinking water, running off and killing oceans. But you raise an important problem. How can it be done?
Organic and humane small scale local farming is more expensive and labor intensive than giant one crop agribusiness, where the animals and yields are bloated by chemicals. Farmers need help in converting to better methods.
We need to study food production and help farmers financially and with technical knowledge. Farmers' magazines look like a combination of medical books and chemistry manuals. There are products to zap any problem, but little consideration of the long term impact. We need to take the reins away from the corporations. Universities need grants to study how we can achieve more natural and sustainable agriculture. We need some new ideas to make farm work viable, both for farmers and laborers and their families.
Countries in Europe consider food so important that they have high standards for production and give real support to farms. (Although globalization and the European union have attacked these practices as inimical to free trade). Problem is because of lobbies, most farm subsidy money has gone to giant companies who have little concern about the earth or human nutrition. The science is centered around Monsanto, Cargill, and companies that take non-organic methods to a new level for quick profit. Our tax money also goes to pay outlandish amounts for war and weapons.
Joe
There is an old saying here in farm country. "Hungry people are a demand for food, hungry people with money are a market". So goes the agbiz paradigm. Anything with Dupont, Monsanto, John Deere, and ADM involved will be only to advance the corporate bottom line-period. These corporate predators will never stop trying to bamboozle the public with fake concern for the underclass. And it never fails to amaze me that there is a continual supply of willing bootlickers to carry their water.
Nanoo
40 million people in the US are food insecure. So why is that when there is plenty of food in the market place? Obviously, they don't have the money.
That dirt that food grows out of is worn out. Already our food contains a fraction of the vitamins and minerals compared to twenty years ago.
You can't live on alcohol or refined sugar, not for long. They have plenty of calories but...
All our food could still look great and be about as nourishing as straw. My age is partly to blame for this, but food already tastes like straw.
I don't know how old your taste buds are, but I would suggest the addition of herbs such as basil, french tarragon, and oregano, and strongly flavored foods such as onion.
I'm 66 and it is not just my food. I was happy enough to be mere clay. Somehow I became a sentient being, painfully aware of flawed humanity, the inhuman dearth of noble natures, the suffering, the needless pain.
"What, without asking hither hurried whence?
And without asking thither hurried hence?
Oh, many a cup of this forbidden wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence----Omar Khayyam
"But fill me with the old familiar Juice, Methinks I might recover by and by. "Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield One glimpse---if dimly, yet indeed, revealed, To which the fainting Traveler might spring, As springs the trampled herbage of the field.
Hybrid seed and $9 million a day to create newer, more expensive hybrid seeds and technology didn't help those farmers in India who saw no way out to pay back the "Money Boys" after their crops failed, so they committed suicide.
Frankly, I don't see how this "New Green revolution" will help those farmers in Africa either. Unless these "New Green Revolutionary" corporations want to be heroes for once in their life and donate seed instead of charging the farmers literally to death if their crops fail. I just hope the seed isn't spliced with hog and human genes. Why would we want to eat people anyways....I don't.
Prairy