"Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers."
David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University

General Soil Impact

16. Toxicity to Soil The industry marketing pitch to the public is that bioengineered seeds and plants will help the environment by reducing toxic herbicide/pesticide use. Isolated examples are given, but the overall reality is exactly opposite. The majority of GM agricultural products are developed specifically for toxin-resistance - namely for higher doses of herbicides/ pesticides sold by the largest producer companies – Monsanto, Dupont Novaris, Dow, Bayer, Ciba-Geigy, Hoescht, AgroEvo, and Rhone-Poulenc. Also the majority of research for future products involves transgenic strains for increased chemical resistance. Not to be fooled, the primary intent is to sell more, not less of their products and to circumvent patent laws. According to an article by R.J. Goldburg scientists predict herbicide use will triple as a result of GM products. As an example of the feverish attempt to expand herbicide use, Monsanto’s patent for Roundup was scheduled to expire. Not to lose their market share, Monsanto came up with the idea of creating “Roundup Ready” seeds. It bought out seed companies to monopolize the terrain - then licensing the seeds to farmers with the requirement that they continue buying Roundup past the expiration of the patent. These contracts had stiff financial penalties if farmers used any other herbicide. As early as 1996, the investment report of Dain Boswell on changes in the seed industry reported that Monsanto’s billion dollar plus acquisition of Holden Seeds ( about 1/3rd of US corn seeds) had “very little to do with Holden as a seed company and a lot to do with the battle between the chemical giants for future sales of herbicides and insecticides.” Also as revealed in corporate interviews conducted by Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey (authors of Against the Grain - Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of your Food), the explicit aim was to control 100% of US soy seeds by the year 2000 only to continue to sell Roundup - or to beat their patent’s expiration. In fact in 1996, about 5000 acres were planted with Roundup Ready soy seeds when Roundup sales accounted for 17% of Monsanto’s $9 billion in annual sales. Not to lose this share but to expand it, Monsanto saw to it that by 1999, 5000 acres grew to approximately 40 million acres out of a total of 60 million - or the majority of all soy plantings in the United States. Furthermore, Roundup could now be spayed over an entire field, not just sparingly over certain weeds. However, the problem with evolving only genetically cloned and thus carbon-copy seeds and plants is that historically, extreme monoculture (high levels of sameness in crop planting) has led to a loss of adaptive survival means - or where deadly plant infections have spread like wildfire. As a separate issue, according to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Monsanto’s Roundout already threatens 74 endangered species in the United States. It attacks photosynthesis in plants non-specifically - their quintessential, life-giving way to process sunlight. Farmers sowing Roundup Ready seeds can also use more of this herbicide than with conventional weed management. Since the genetically modified plants have alternative ways to create photosynthesis, they are hyper-tolerant, and can thus be sprayed repeatedly without killing the crop. Though decaying in the soil, Roundup residues are left on the plant en route to the consumer. Malcolm Kane, (former head of food safety for Sainsbury’s chain of supermarkets) revealed that the government, to accommodate Monsanto, raised pesticide residue limits on soy products about 300-fold from 6 parts per million to 20 parts. Lastly Roundup is a human as well as environmental poison. According to a study at the University of California, glyphosphate (the active ingredient of Roundup) was the third leading cause of farm worker illnesses. At least fourteen persons have died from ingesting Roundup. These cases involved mostly individuals intentionally taking this poison to commit suicide in Japan and Taiwan. From this we know that the killing dose is so small it can be put on a finger tip (0.4 cubic centimeters). Monsanto, however, proposes a universal distribution of this lethal substance in our food chain. All of this is not shocking, given Monsanto’s history - being the company that first distributed PCBs and vouched for their safety.

17. Soil Sterility and Pollution In Oregon, scientists found GM bacterium (klebsiella planticola) meant to break down wood chips, corn stalks and lumber wastes to produce ethanol - with the post-process waste to be used as compost - rendered the soil sterile. It killed essential soil nutrients, robbing the soil of nitrogen and killed nitrogen capturing fungi. A similar result was found in 1997 with the GM bacteria Rhizobium melitoli. Professor Guenther Stotzky of New York University conducted research showing the toxins that were lethal to Monarch butterfly are also released by the roots to produce soil pollution. The pollution was found to last up to 8 months with depressed microbial activity. An Oregon study showed that GM soil microbes in the lab killed wheat plants when added to the soil.

Seeds

19. Extinction of Seed Varieties A few years ago Time magazine referred to the massive trend by large corporations to buy up small seed companies, destroying any competing stock, and replacing it with their patented or controlled brands as “the Death of Birth.” Monsanto additionally has had farmers sign contracts not to save their seeds - forfeiting what has long been a farmer’s birthright to remain guardians of the blueprints of successive life.

Plants

19. Superweeds It has been shown that genetically modified Bt endotoxin remains in the soil at least 18 months (according to Marc Lappe and Britt Bailey) and can be transported to wild plants creating superweeds - resistant to butterfly, moth, and beetle pests – potentially disturbing the balance of nature. A study in Denmark (Mikkelsen, 1996) and in the UK (National Institute of Agricultural Botany) showed superweeds growing nearby in just one generation. A US study showed the superweed resistant to glufosinate to be just as fertile as non-polluted weeds. Another study showed 20 times more genetic leakage with GM plants – or a dramatic increase in the flow of genes to outside species. Also in a UK study by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, it was confirmed that superweeds could grow nearby in just one generation. Scientists suspect that Monsanto’s wheat will hybridize with goat grass, creating an invulnerable superweed. The National Academy of Science’s study stated that “ concern surrounds the possibility of genes for resisting pests being passed from cultivated plants to their weedy relatives, potentially making the weed problem worse. This could pose a high cost to farmers and threaten the ecosystem.” (quoting Perry Adkisson, chancellor emeritus of Texas A&M University, who chaired the National Academy of Science study panel). An experiment in France showed a GM canola plant could transfer genes to wild radishes, what persisted in four generations. Similarly, and according to New Scientists, an Alberta Canada farmer began planting three fields of different GM canola seeds in 1997 and by 1999 produced not one, but three different mutant weeds - respectively resistant to three common herbicides (Monsanto’s Roundup, Cyanamid’s Pursuit, and Aventis’ Liberty). In effect genetic materials migrated to the weeds they were meant to control. Now the Alberta farmer is forced to use a potent 2,4-D what GM crops promised to avoid use of. Finally Stuart Laidlaw reported in the Toronto Star that the Ontario government study indicated herbicide use was on the rise primarily largely due to the introduction of GM crops.

20. Plant Invasions We can anticipate classic bio-invasions as a result of new GM strains, just as with the invasions of the kutzu vine or purple loosestrife in the plant world.

Trees

21. Destruction of Forest Life GM trees or “supertrees” are being developed which can be sprayed from the air to kill literally all of surrounding life, except the GM trees. There is an attempt underway to transform international forestry by introducing multiple species of such trees. The trees themselves are often sterile and flowerless. This is in contrast to rainforests teaming with life, or where a single tree can host thousands of unique species of insects, fungi, mammals and birds in an interconnected ecosphere. This kind of development has been called “death-engineering” rather than “life-” or “bio-engineering.” More ominously pollen from such trees, because of their height, has traveled as much as 400 miles or 600 kilometers - roughly 1/5 of the distance across the United States.

22. Terminator Trees Monsanto has developed plans with the New Zealand Forest Research Agency to create still more lethal tree plantations. These super deadly trees are non-flowering, herbicide-resistant and with leaves exuding toxic chemicals to kill caterpillars and other surrounding insects – destroying the wholesale ecology of forest life. As George McGavin, curator of entomology Oxford University noted, “If you replace vast tracts of natural forest with flowerless trees, there will be a serious effect on the richness and abundance of insects…If you put insect resistance in the leaves as well you will end up with nothing but booklice and earwigs. We are talking about vast tracts of land covered with plants that do not support animal life as a sterile means to cultivate wood tissue. That is a pretty unattractive vision of the future and I for one want no part of it.”

Contact: Nathan Batalion 607-432-5214 Americans for Safe Food 161 East Street Map Oneonta, New York N.Y.