By Prof. Peter Stewart
A reply to Neo Masithele
The recent article by Neo Masithele (Umrabulo no 18 June 2003) must be welcomed for keeping open an important debate, but it needs to be challenged. It is too much on the side of business; it is not enough on the side of communities and poorer farmers; and is misleading in a number of respects. And it reflects the weaknesses of the Genetically Modified Organisms Act of 1997.
Cde Masithele writes with a basic trust of both the economic benefit of GM technology particularly as regards food security, and the ease with which current and potential environmental and health problems can be contained. On both counts, trust is unwarranted.
Cynical economics and food insecurity
Biotechnology involving GMOs is an industry not connected in any way to the needs of the poor, at present. It is firstly an extension of the agribusiness and pharmaceutical industries of the rich north, and has been facilitated by the World Trade Organisation allowing patenting of genetically engineered organisms. This means that a GE plant or animal which has tens of thousands of genes inherited from nature and, in the case of food crops, selected by generations of farmers over thousands of years, with the simple addition of one gene from another species, now belongs to the holder of the patent. Such patenting is considered by many public groups around the world to be invalid, but at the moment it is backed by the WTO. Patenting combined with GM food and pharmaceutical technology has been a central means of extending monopolistic conditions into the farming, food and medical fields.
GM agriculture has not been particularly successful, even in its own terms of higher yields and less pesticides. The most impartial and thorough studies to date show 'a highly mixed performance in the field', and significant cases where more, not less, pesticide had to be used (Pretty 2002: 139; see also Altieri 2000). In Argentina, more than 150 000 small farmers have left the land as a result of the spread of GM soya. Further, current GM crops often use extremely strong and often toxic general herbicides which can damage human health [for example, in the case of herbicide-resistant forage maize Chardon LL, glufosinate , a neurotoxin and teratogen (dangerous to human pregnancy) is used (Soil Association 2003)] . The Bt crops, with a gene from the toxin-producing bacillus thuringiensis, which are insect-resistant, are also toxic for non-pest organisms such as earthworms. This cannot be good for the soil and constitutes a hidden cost.
It is possible that some future more environmentally sophisticated GM crops or animals could be produced, and that selected cases of these GMOs might form a limited part of future food security (Pretty: 142ff). Perhaps we should expect such products to be made available from some sources in about five years. At present, however, GM food offers little except quick profits (mostly repatriated elsewhere), a further invasion of national large-medium- and small-scale agriculture by transnational agribusiness, a further geographical spread of extreme monocropping, and also increased food allergies and new forms of pesticide pollution. In addition, the current GM industry (which also includes a huge range of GMOs used in the pharmaceutical industry) introduces risks of genetic pollution which can be extremely difficult to manage.
Current strategies of food security do not need this industry, or at least this stage of the industry. The primary issues of food security - for those who are vulnerable, ie the poor - are those of distribution, income and price of existing food - people are hungry because they are poor. Food security needs a reinvestment in community agriculture, community commons and local ecosystems, including the replenishment of soil. All this is very far from the GM rationale in agriculture. Genetic engineering in its present form cannot be regarded as an ally of sustainable development or sustainable national agriculture. While indeed having potential -if put at the service of the public- it is at an early and hazardous stage of development, and in addition is dominated by private business interests. The different levels of farming, in order to flourish and help towards food security, must be protected from the imperious strategies of transnational agribusiness and 'bioagropharmachemical' monopolies (McNally & Wheale 1998: 314).
So no, Cde Masithele, with present technologies and the international structure of agro-business, GM crops are not the answer to Southern African food security problems.
And the extent of GMO activity in our country is much larger than that suggested by Cde Masithele. As of January 2003, permits had been given for 152 field trials. Huge volumes of GM maize and soyabean have been imported. Even bigger volumes have been imported of non-GM maize which may be contaminated by GM maize but not to an extent of more than 1% of total volume. It is likely that the majority of people in our country are eating foods with GM components (particularly from soyabean and maize) without knowing it.
High-tech business, immature science
Genetic engineering is regarded as a high-tech industry, and indeed it concentrates much scientific expertise and is a site of creative experimentation worldwide. Unfortunately this science is practiced on a terrain which is not well understood - namely that of the relation between particular transgene constructs and particular hosts, the particular patterns of transgene expression and protein interaction in the host, and the effect of particular GMOs on a variety of natural environments.
Biotechnology is a standard capitalist concern, aiming to maximize profits and externalize costs. Because of the scientific ignorance mentioned above and the limitations in current GM technology -and because of the inherent slowness of finding how a new organism interacts with natural environments -GE business attempts to shift the cost of risk, unintended effects, and unavoidable environmental costs onto ordinary farmers, consumers, the environment and the nations of the South.
The weakness of current GE technology can be illustrated through the nature of the transgene construct inserted into the host cell in plants. In this microscopic process, the new gene introduced to improve the plant, the transgene, is put into the cell through a combination of mechanisms which are each capable of, and sometimes likely to create cellular instability. The artificial GE gene construct which is placed in the cell can consist of five or more unrelated and foreign components or 'expression cassettes'. In many cases, the transgene is attached to a viral vector, a part of a virus associated with serious diseases that is able to invade the cells of that particular plant. The transgene itself comes from a different species -often a different kingdom. Sometimes the transgene itself is bacterial or viral in origin and associated with disease or toxin production, as in the case with bT GMOs. The transgene is inserted because it produces a specific trait in the fully grown GMO.
However, genes commonly produce more than one protein, depending on how they are spliced. The full biochemical pathways involved in expression of the transgene in its parent organism are often not known, and the effect of the gene in the cells and organism of the GMO are also usually not known-other than that the desired trait is produced in the GMO. Also in the inserted gene construct is a promoter gene, to make the main transgene express itself. This promoter usually switches the transgene on all the time, not occasionally like most genes.
Then there may also be a 'terminator', another unrelated piece of DNA. Lastly, the inserted gene construct may have an antibiotic marker gene, which produces an antibiotic in the cells where the transgene construct successfully locates itself. This is so that the biotech company can breed the successfully invaded cells, and discard the unmarked cells. The genetic 'engineers' do not (in a large number of the processes used) otherwise know in which cells the transgene has successfully located. Further, in no GE process are the genes located in particular positions on the chromosomes. Rather, several or even many copies of the gene construct are attached randomly to the target cell's DNA. This too creates an unusual and sometimes disruptive process in the engineered cell and its descendants.
All of the factors above make it reasonably likely that cell metabolism will be disturbed well beyond producing the protein that gives the desired trait. It also makes it entirely possible that the health of the GMO will be weakened by the production of unfamiliar proteins. Further, the different expression cassettes can separate and combine strangely with other genetic elements in the cell. Where, rarely, the transgene's insertion results in a thriving organism, the problem may be more with the effect of the novel organism on the environment into which it is placed. The nature of the transgene construct and its mode of attachment also make it possible that there may be 'horizontal gene transfer' of the transgene into the environment, particularly into bacteria.
Areas of high risk: genetic pollution, abuse of people
The hazards created by GMOs are real, not just potential. In the early days of GE, in an infamous case, a GE food supplement, L-tryptophan, caused thousands of people to fall ill in 1989; 'Within months dozens had died and thousands were maimed as a result of EMA (eosinophilic-myalgia syndrome)' (Shiva 2001:75). In the more recent case of Starlink corn, engineered to produce its own pesticide but approved only for animal use in the U.S., in the year 2000 it appeared in various human foods and produced 48 cases of allergic reaction, in some instance extremely severe. The ensuing lawsuits and consumer reaction created huge losses for Aventis Crop Science (Anderson 2001).
The risk of serious genetic pollution (resulting in high costs to society, individual victims, or to the environment) may be small or large, but, unlike chemical pollution, there are risks of irreversible changes. 'If some unknown, unpredictable adverse effect results from GMOs, the effect could be uncontrollable, permanent, and irreversible. And by that time it would be too late' (Anderson 2001:p220). Faced with such a catastrophe, The GMO Act of 1997 would only empower the government to close down the offending company and sentence the persons responsible to at most two or four years or a fine (depending on previous warnings).
The pollution of food staples and their wild relatives is one area of crucial concern, and one that concerns our country, seeing that most of the permits granted by January 2003 were to do with GM maize and soya, along with Bt cotton. Imagine the consequence if an allergy-creating GM maize variety interbred with all the locally used strains of the staple. In Britain, 'a 50% rise in soya allergies is reported since imports of GM soya started' and a similar rise in allergies was reported in Ireland (Soil Association 2003).
Other areas of concern include bioweapons, genetically engineered vaccines, the use of the HIV family of viruses in producing viral vectors, acute hazards such as 'naked' and 'free' nucleic acids (Ho,Ryan, Cummins & Traavik), and the problem of GE wastes from failed experiments, dead GMOs and so forth.
Even the richer industrialized countries are struggling to establish controls over premature marketing of unsafe GM products, experimentation in new and dangerous areas, and illegal trade and disposal of GMOs.
Is it not clear that for now and the next few years this whole industry has extremely little relevance to the poor? It does its business while there is further marginalization of the poor, and it goes with a further seizing of public 'commons' by the corporate private sphere.
Gaps in current legislation
Finally I offer some reflections on the GMO Act of 1997. It was an excellent step to have a specific act dealing with genetically modified organisms. However, against Cde Masithele's argument I am convinced that the current regulations are not safe enough.
The Act gives the government the power to do most of what is necessary to preserve biosafety, but it does not oblige the Council or Minister to do anything. The Council 'may' perform actions which regulate - and promote -GMO use. But there is nothing saying what the council shall do, other than meet. In one way the Act is justified in having a Council, Advisory Committee registrar and inspectors with highly discretionary powers. In the context of a fast-changing industry, these are necessary. However, especially in a world of transnational corporate bribery and attempts at bribery, the present Act does not enjoin on the council those duties that will guarantee the public interest in environmental protection and safeguards to health.
Perhaps, adapting from the duties of the advisory committee in the Act, there should be a provision that 'The Council shall, in the public interest, give due consideration of all aspects relating to the introduction of GMOs into the environment, and take appropriate action in the public interest thereto.' The Act must hold the government structures to the public task of safeguarding health and the environment in the face of GMOs. Perhaps it should also hold the government to the task of safer, much cheaper GMOs designed in the interest of farmers and the public.
Similarly, perhaps through far more prohibitions and regulations from the Minister, or perhaps in an amended Act, there need to be some specific environmental regulations. This could assist in deterrence and in prosecutions. For example: It shall be an offence to pollute a human food through genetic modification. It shall be an offense to import, export, create or use a GMO without a license. In addition, the Act or the Minister should prohibit certain kinds of GE- for instance of human cells using non-human genes, or using human genes in non-human cells, using the Human Immune virus family for the vector for the transgene, the use of GE to produce specified kinds of poisons and GE experiments on certain disease-creating bacteria and viruses. There should be specific legislation outlawing GE bioweapons too.
There are two crucial social-environmental imperatives: 'the precautionary principle' and 'the polluter pays' principle.
The precautionary principle, which lies behind the EU's moratorium on many GM activities and transactions, is that when there is a small but real chance of a terrible thing happening, one should take proper precautions, even though it is unlikely to happen. The GMO Act allows the government to exercise the precautionary principle with particular GMO events and GM products. However, there is nothing like a moratorium, nor even precautions against certain classes of GM activity. I must say there would have been little loss to agriculture or any other sector in imposing a complete moratorium on GM processes and products in South Africa, if we had not permitted so many GM events and allowed the intertwining of sections of our agricultural and food economy with the GM strategies of the global food business. Legislation - and policy- should be modified to reduce this entanglement. The aim should be protection against the crude industry of the present, while keeping the door open to fourth-generation GE products which are stable, environmentally benign, and designed with public participation to serve the public rather than corporate interest.
We seem to be even further from 'the polluter pays' principle, unless the fine that can be imposed can be completely out of proportion to the jail sentences permitted. The penalty for infringing the Act is only a maximum of two years for a first offence and four years for subsequent offences. It is important that the penalty for major ecological damage be at a level that deters potential criminals, and forces corporations and indeed the mandated government committees to energetically pursue safety standards. I would recommend more daunting sentence maximums, and up to full liability for environmental and health costs. Patent-holders, applicants and users (in the sense used in the Act) should be made liable in specified degree for overall environmental and health costs, including the loss of life and manslaughter.
Finally, and this is also an immediate essential, legislation or a ministerial regulation should compel the food industry in our country to identify all, not selected, GM products and derivatives on consumer labels-including the <1% GM maize. This honesty to consumers will, I am happy to say, increase the pressure on this present generation of all too often barbaric GM technology.
Main Sources Used
Miguel Altieri, The ecological impacts of transgenic crops on agroecosystem
health. Online: http://nature.berkeley.edu/~agroeco3/the_ecological_impacts.html
July 2000
Dan Anderson Biotechnology risk management: the case of genetically modified
organisms (GMOs).CPCU Journal 54(4) 2001
Katie Eastham & Jeremy Sweet, Genetically modified organisms (GMOs): The
significance of gene flow through pollen transfer. Copenhagen: European Environmental
Agency Report 28.
Mae-Wan Ho, Horizontal gene transfer- The hidden hazard of genetic engeneering.
Online: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/gene.htm
Mae-Wan Ho, Angela Ryan, J Cummins & T Traavik. Unregulated hazards: 'Naked'
and 'free' nucleic acids. Third World Network. Online: http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/naked.htm.
Downloaded 2003-7-14.
Ruth McNally & Peter Wheale, The consequences of modern genetic engineering:
Patents, 'nomads' and the 'bio-industrial complex', in The social management
of genetic engineering, edited by Peter Wheale, Rene von Schomberg and Peter
Glastner. Brookfield, Vermont: Ashgate 1998.
Neo Masithele, The Regulation of Genetically Modified Organisms in South Africa.
Umrabulo 18, June 2003.
Jules Pretty, Agri-Culture. Reconnecting People, land and nature. London: Earthscan
2002.
Republic of South Africa. Genetically Modified Organisms Act No 15 1997.
Vananda Shiva, Tomorrow's biodiversity. London: Thames & Hudson 2000.
Soil Association. GM food: scientific evidence of health risks. Online: http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/librarytitles/Briefing_Sheets10042001
Updated 06/2003.
[Contents]