The International

The controversy over genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, has heated up in Italy after Giorgio Fidenato, an Italian agronomist, planted genetically modified corn without the special permission required from the Italian Agriculture Ministry. Fidenato has declared “war” against the Italian government. As he put it, “We (pro-GMO farmers) had no choice but to engage in civil disobedience—these seeds are legal in Europe.”1

Indeed, the European Union allows the crop Fidenato is accused of illegally planting, MON810, to be planted. After numerous failed attempts to get permission from the unresponsive Italian government, Fidenato planted the seeds anyway and claims that he has an army of farmers ready to do the same if the government does not relent. Other Italians, however, are not as supportive of the GM corn, especially because it threatens the prominent organic vegetable industry on which they heavily rely. The Ya Basta Association, an activist group concerned with issues of capitalism, even destroyed Fidenato’s corn in protest when he announced that it was ready to be harvested.2 Luca Tornatore, a spokesman for Ya Basta, as they are commonly called, said that their “action was aimed against the violence that GM crops wreak on the environment and on humans.”3

The Italian corn debate is only the latest European battle over GMOs. Ireland adopted a GM-free zone policy in 2009 and even created a voluntary GM-free label for food products.4 France, Austria, and Germany have banned MON810.5 Also, the European Union’s GMO policies were found to be an illegal de-facto moratorium in violation of World Trade Organization (WTO) rules in 2006 after the United States, Canada and Argentina accused them of interfering with the trade and development of GM food.6,7 Pro-GMO Italian farmers have complained that despite the ruling and reprimand from the WTO, Europe “still has not really opened its doors.”8

The prominence and importance of the European market give Europe’s GMO policies the ability to affect the entire global community. Both Italian and European responses to Fidenato’s agricultural war may affect the environmental and agronomic landscapes worldwide, especially since GMOs have the potential to aid and perhaps even boost the economy of developed countries. Can GMOs really be part of an agricultural revolution, help developed countries and combat world hunger? How will Europe’s actions—or as others would say, lack of action—affect the economy and well-being of other nations? Can nations with different interests come to an agreement regarding GM food?

GMOs: good or bad?

The crop Fidenato planted, MON810, is genetically modified to produce a chemical that kills corn borer larvae in order to prevent them from tunneling into ears of corn and allowing funguses to fill the holes in their wake. Some of these funguses produce mycotoxins that can end up in places like the milk of corn-fed cows and have been associated with serious health problems, including cancers.9 The use of MON810 could theoretically save corn, money and people’s lives.

Other GMOs offer similarly alluring benefits. They can be modified for favorable traits like pest or disease resistance or for herbicide, drought or salinity tolerance. Modified tobacco and potato crops have been created with antifreeze genes from cold water fish for more weather resistance. “Golden rice,” a grain with high levels of beta-carotene was produced in hopes of preventing blindness in countries that are malnourished (lacking nutrients) or undernourished (lacking calories). Tomatoes and potatoes are candidates for carrying the world’s first edible vaccines.10 Many believe that these desirable crop qualities will allow for better crop yield, less pesticide use, better health and even easing world hunger.

There are, however, many unknowns about GMOs including what the best way is for growing them commercially. Common concerns include the possibilities of disrupting ecosystems, unintentionally harming organisms, reducing the effectiveness of pesticides, “contaminating” non-GM crops through gene transfer, creating herbicide resistant weeds, triggering allergies in humans or causing other health problems.11 Studies in rats have revealed that different GMOs can result in smaller kidneys, a raised white blood cell count, gut lesions, damaged immune systems, less developed brains, livers and testicles, enlarged tissues, partial atrophy of the liver, and the proliferation of cells in the stomach and intestines which may indicate an increased chance of developing cancer.12 While rats are not humans, these findings suggest that GM food may be harmful to other organisms.

While some countries have banned GMOs, others have been fairly open to the idea of developing, testing, producing and distributing GM food. This is especially true in the US where the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ruled that GMOs “do not differ in any substantial way from those developed through traditional plant breeding methods—genetic modification simply extends traditional methods to the molecular level.”13 On the other hand, Europe views both GM food and products that have GMO-derived ingredients as different from traditional food. Since the WTO has ruled against their GMO policies, Europeans have allowed the development, growth and sale of GM food to a limited extent, approving what critic and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute Gregory Conko calls a “small, token number of gene-spliced product applications.” Conko goes on to hold Europe responsible for the fate of other countries by saying, “…the less developed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which once anticipated that agricultural and food biotechnology could provide them a brighter and more self-sufficient future, will continue to be shut out of the important European market.”14

Others are more skeptical of GM food’s potential to help developing countries. Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation and author of “Ecological Debt: The Health of the Planet and the Wealth of the Nations,” said, “People go hungry because they’re either poor, powerless, both, or have no land to grow food on. GM crops don’t change this.”15 Concerning the possibility of using GM crops to provide food aid, some have noted through neo-Malthusian logic that food aid may actually worsen suffering as it is “counter-productive and results in further over-population…[which] leads to an increase in net suffering since provisions are scarcer still when the population increases.”16

World responses to GM technology

Governments have adopted different GM food policies that fit the interests of their citizens. Most European countries are devoted to thier traditional ways and reluctant to embrace GMOs in any way, a reaction that the Institute of Ideas (London, U.K.) science and society director Tony Gilland blamed on a preoccupation with risk: “On the issues of science and technology…Europe is often guided by the idea that innovation should only proceed when there is a guarantee that the outcome will not be harmful.” He believes this attitude may put Europe at risk for falling behind technologically, saying that “the possibility cannot be entirely ruled out that Europeans will just let the biotechnology train pass them by.”17

Developing nations, on the other hand, are willing to take risks for the chance to get ahead. Clive James, chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), predicts that developing nations will adopt GMOs faster and notes that for some nations, adopting GMOs may be necessitated by certain farming conditions. According to James, “China, Brazil, India, Argentina and South Africa are the big five that will drive rise in Bt crop (GM food with Bacillus thuringiensis genes that ensure pest resistance) areas as they try to improve yield when arable land growth is stagnant.”18

Ghana, which is considered to have medium human development, has been making strides in GM food farming, motivated by population pressure, the need for agricultural intensification, pollution prevention and climate change among other stressors. Professor Walter Sandow Alhassan, project coordinator for Safe Biotechnology Management in Sub-Saharan Africa (SABIMA), also notes that Ghana’s pursuit of GM technology is “appropriate” because GM produce being field tested in neighboring countries Togo, Burkina Faso and Nigeria would “find their way into the country.”19 Ghanaians have no problem with GM crops, and are “daily consuming [them] without much care” and do not even bother to read labels on food products containing GM ingredients.20

Other southern African countries strongly distrust GM products and even refused food aid in the form of GM maize from the U.S. in 2002, an event which led to the U.S. filing a complaint to the WTO regarding the EU’s GMO policies. While some African countries later accepted the aid on the condition that it was first milled, Zambia refused even milled maize.21 Also, Kenya found that GM crops necessitated the use of more pesticides which can harm the environment, especially when washed into rivers and lakes; two-headed fish have been reportedly found in the contaminated Lake Naivasha.22 On the other hand, the report on Global Status of Biotech/GM Crops found that Egypt, Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Brazil and Australia were the first five countries to commercialize their GM crops.23South Africa, China, India and the Philippines also benefitted from the commercialization of GM crops and now claim better quality of life and higher incomes thanks to GMOs.24 Each country has its own unique view of and relationship with GM technology, making it highly improbable that a worldwide consensus on the issue will be found anytime soon.

Finding national solutions may not be any easier. Italy has been accused by many of “foot-dragging” while making GMO-related decisions. Before illegally planting MON810, Fidenato repeatedly applied for permission to plant his crops and lobbied for approval over the course of several years but the government never finalized their decision.25 In response, Fidenato planted his crops and announced his actions to the public which angered anti-GM group Ya Basta. The activists complained to the government, asking for the crops to be destroyed, but did not receive any response either. The Italian government’s silence may reflect the dissonance between its citizens. A Food Navigator 2007 survey showed that “An overwhelming number of farmers favoured field trials of [GM]corn…[because it is] senseless to allow imports of GM corn to Italy while not allowing Italian farmers the right to grow the same products.”26 Other reports, however, note that Italian farmers who rely on organic and heritage crops worry about GM-contamination causing their products to lose their organic designation and the resulting economic consequences.27

After Fidenato’s illegal planting and public declarations of war and Ya Basta’s trespassing and destruction of private property, the Italian government will most likely react to the events and may be forced to fully define their stance on GMOs. What, if any, effect will Italy’s actions have on the European Union? On the world?

The future of GM foods

Even if no global consensus on GMOs is ever reached, each country will have to respond to GM technology as they see fit, depending on their environmental, social, economical and agricultural circumstances. Also, as more research and field testing is being done, the benefits and drawbacks of GMOs may become clearer which may make it easier for countries to draft their GM food policies. For now, there are several courses of action available that Italy or any other nation may choose to take. Generally, GM foods may be endorsed or tolerated, banned or further tested for environmental and health effects.

Those who favor endorsement cite the potential health and environmental benefits of GM farming. GMO advocates emphasize that “every risk analysis performed by countless scientific bodies worldwide has shown that the splicing of new genes into plants, per se, introduces no incremental risks”28 and has the potential to ease world hunger, a possibility embraced by Gustav Nossal, Australian biologist and chairman of a panel that lifted an Australian moratorium on GMOs in 2008. Nossal supports the approval of GM production because of its potential to create new and exciting crops that could ease the malnourishment—not just the undernourishment—of Third World countries: “[Third World food is poor quality because it lacks] protein and essential amino acids as well as micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron and iodine. GM technology offers the hope of devising staple crops richer in these essential constituents.”29

Others say that in the light of the possible negative effects GMOs may have, governments should not approve GM crops. Some, like Andy Rees, author of “Genetically Modified Food: A Short Guide for the Confused,” say governments should even go so far as banning GMOs. Rees discredits pro-GMO arguments that GM products are needed, that separation distances can be used to prevent some environmental problems and that GMOs have not been definitely proven to be unsafe—he even accuses GM food companies of being “economical with the facts” and lying to the public for economic gain. He also claims that “as far as human health goes, the biotech industry cannot know that their products are safe, because there has only been one published human health study.” This study found that GM DNA could transfer to gut bacteria in human individuals after just one meal. Instead, Rees endorses traditional methods of achieving what GM scientists aspire to. For example, instead of using a GM potato modified to prevent blight, he suggests using copper sprays or planting potato varieties that are naturally blight resistant.30

The last possible solution is to not commit to totally embracing or rejecting GMOs and to instead continue research until more definite verdicts can be made. After Ireland banned both the cultivation and ecological risk-assessment of GM crops, ecology lecturer Conor Meade from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, called the ban on research short-sighted and proposed carefully monitoring GM research instead. He points out the potential rewards of GM and the possibility that they are, after all, completely safe to grow and eat. Meade says, “Science may conclude at the end of the day that GM is a bad idea for us and for the environment. So be it. But what if science doesn’t say this, what if it says GM has indeed great potential to benefit us…what then?…Probably the only way to put in place a durable strategy for stewardship of GM technology is not to turn our backs on it, but to come to grips with it.”31

Eventually, Italy, the rest of Europe, and the whole world will have to decide whether to embrace, research or ban GMOs. As each country makes its choice, it threatens to change the agronomic dynamics of the world. GM crops, if their benefits prove to outweigh the risks, may become the focus of the agricultural industry. This technology may even facilitate global power shifts as developing countries use it to not only support their growing populations but also to fully develop economically. Courtesy of GMOs, the countries dominating the world economy today may not be the countries dominating the market tomorrow.

1. Elisabeth Rosenthal, “In the Fields of Italy, A Conflict Over Corn,” The New York Times, August 24, 2010.
2. Stephanie Dearing, “Field of illegal GM corn growing in Italy destroyed by activists,” Digital Journal, August 13, 2010 (Checkbiotech).
3. “Activists destroy cornfield in Italy,” United Press International, August 10, 2010.
4. GM-Free Ireland, “Ireland Adopts GMO-free Policy,” http://www.gmfreeireland.org/press/GMFI45.pdf, August 29, 2010
5. Rosenthal, “In the Fields of Italy”
6. Ian Sheldon, “Food Principles: Regulating Genetically Modified Crops after the 2006 WTO Ruling,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XIV, Issue 1 (GreenFILE).
7. Leo Cendrowicz, “Is Europe Finally Ready for Genetically Modified Foods?,” Time.com, March 10, 2010 (Checkbiotech).
8. Rosenthal, “In the Fields of Italy.”
9. Rosenthal.
10. Deborah Whitman, “Genetically Modified Foods: Harmful or Helpful?” (CSA Discovery Guides).
11. Whitman, “Genetically Modified Foods.”
12. Andy Rees, “Genetically Modified Food Should Be Banned,” The Ecologist, September 22, 2006 (Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context).
13. FDA, as quoted in Sheldon, “Food Principles.”
14. Gregory Conko, “The WTO Should Force the EU to End Its Moratorium on Gentically Modified Food,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, January 23, 2007 (Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context).
15. Andrew Simms, “Genetically Modified Food Will Not Ease World Hunger,” Guardian, (UK), August 4, 2003 (Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context).
16. Lucy Carter, “A case for a duty to feed the hungry: GM plants and the third world,” January 24, 2007 (EBSCOhost).
17. Tony Gilland, “Food Policies Should Not Be Based on Irrational Fears,” American Enterprise, March 2004 (Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context).
18. Banikinkar Pattanayak, “U.S. Scientist: Developing Nations to Adopt GM Crops Faster,” The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2010 (Checkbiotech).
19. “Experts urge Ghanaians to use and apply modern biotechnology,” Ghana Web, August 27, 2010 (Checkbiotech).
20. Francis Kokutse, “Agriculture in Ghana: Few signs of concern as GM crops advance,” Inter-Press Service, May 15, 2009 (Checkbiotech).
21. Jennifer Clapp, “The Political Economy of Food Aid in an Era of Agricultural Biotechnology,” Global Governance, October 2005 (EBSCOhost).
22. Kokutse, “Agriculture in Ghana.”
23. “Ghana to undertake field trials on GM crops,” GhanaHomePage, March 2, 2009 (Checkbiotech).
24. “Ghana to undertake field trials.”
25. Rosenthal, “In the Fields of Italy.”
26. Dearing, “Field of illegal GM corn.”
27. Rosenthal, “In the Field of Italy.”
28. Conko, “The WTO Should Force the EU.”
29. Gustav Nossal, “Genetically Modified Crops Can Help Ease World Hunger,” The Age, June 23, 2008 (Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context).
30. Andy Rees, “Genetically Modified Food Should Be Banned.”
31. Conor Meade, “Gentically Modified Food Should Not Be Banned, but Carefully Monitored,” The Irish Times, June 23, 2007 (Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context).