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Voices From the South Debunk GE Myths

June 20, 2003

A new report, Voices From the South, systematically refutes a number
of widely promoted myths about genetically engineered (GE) food.
Released by Pesticide Action Network North America and Food First just
days before a ministerial level agricultural conference promoting GE
foods gets underway in Sacramento, California, the report counters the
claims of the biotech industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
that GE crops are a solution to hunger in the Third World.

In the report, leading activists, scientists and farmers from
countries as diverse as Ethiopia, India and Ecuador argue that the
development of GE crops has not focused on feeding people but rather
on securing market share for the world's largest agrochemical/biotech
companies. "Genetically engineered crops are instruments of
industrialized agriculture," said Silvia Ribeiro of the ETC Group in
Uruguay, one of the authors. "They benefit the richest people in the
world, not the hungriest. GE crops are designed to take the control of
food production away from local communities, by creating greater
dependence on agribusiness corporations for seed and pesticides."

The report addresses six common myths spread by the biotech industry
about GE crops, with responses by leading Third World analysts. "You
can break down these myths into three basic components: Green washing,
poor washing, and hope dashing," said Anuradha Mittal, co-director of
Food First, who is from India. "Green washing suggests that biotech
will create a world free of pesticides; poor washing would have us
believe that we must accept genetically engineered crops if we are to
feed the poor in the Third World; and hope dashing claims there are no
alternatives. But in this report, this rhetoric is systematically
dismantled by the very people GE crops are supposed to benefit."

Research by Food First reveals that the industry claim that there is
not enough food to feed the hungry is not based in fact. The world
today produces more food per inhabitant than ever before. The real
causes of hunger are poverty, inequality and lack of access. Too many
people are too poor to buy the food that is available (but often
poorly distributed) or lack the land and resources to grow it
themselves.

"What farmers in the developing world need are policies that give
farming communities control over their own resources and build on
local ecological knowledge," writes Timothy Byakola, also an author,
who coordinates PAN East Africa, "not another technological quick
fix."

The authors note that there is already enough food to feed the world
one and a half times over, and that genetically engineered crops have
caused economic and ecological problems where they have been grown.
The report argues that the poor and hungry of the developing world
need economic and social policies that address the root causes of
hunger in poverty and inequality, not quick technological fixes that
largely benefit foreign corporations.

The report highlights traditional farming methods that involve
sustainable use of land, water and seeds in a system that guarantees
food sovereignty. Current global trade and economic policies which
force privatization, centralization and commercialization are a threat
to food sovereignty in southern countries.

Voices from the South: The Third World Debunks Corporate Myths on
Genetically Engineered Crops is published by Pesticide Action Network
(PANNA) and Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy,
as part of the work of both organizations to bring the views of
grassroots activists of the global south to the political debate about
the risks and costs of GE food.

Voices from the South is available online at http://www.foodfirst.org/

Sources: Voices from the South, The Third World Debunks Corporate
Myths on Genetically Engineered Crops, Ellen Hickey and Anuradha
Mittal (editors), June 2003, PANNA, 49 Powell St. #500 San Francisco,
CA 94102, (415)981-1771, http://www.panna.org/ .