Frankenfood Meets the Greens: The Controversy over Genetically Altered Crops

1
Frankenfood Meets the Greens The Controversy
over Genetically Altered Crops

• Watersheds3 10 Cases in Environmental Ethics

2
Whats for Dinner?
http//vegnet.osu.edu/vegnet/library/res03/SwtCrn
P3_files/frame.htm
3
Why were Genetically modified organisms
introduced by Monsanto?
4
To increase the food from farming!

• Genetically modified organisms were introduced by
  Monsanto to increase the amount of food that can
  be gotten by farming.

5

• Today up to 40 of the world crops will perish as
  they grow before they leave the field.

6

• Demand is expected to rise as population
  increases, and more people have a higher standard
  of living.

7

• Why were people worried about GMOs?

8
Pesticides!

• Broad-spectrum herbicide that are lethal to all
  plants, encourage genetic engineering of
  resistant crops.

9

• Why did people worry that GMO would lead to more
  pesticide use?

10
A Negative Cycle?

• People worried that this might encourage more use
  if this didnt hurt the plants they wanted to
  protect at all.
• But sometimes the use of pesticides was reduced
  because of genetic engineering (for example in
  the cotton industry).

11

• Today in the United States one half of our
  soybean crops are genetically engineered.

12
The Boycott

• Jeremy Rifkin, organized the first boycotted of
  GE foods in 1993, and The Environmental Defense
  fund worried about insect resistance to the
  insecticide BT.

13

• Others worried that local weeds might acquire
  herbicide resistance and that we would need more
  pesticides to control them. Some were even
  opposed to the very idea of DNA as a commodity.

14

• Who rejected GMO foods and why?

15
The EU!

• The European Community rejected genetically
  modified organisms for three reasons 1) Europe
  has many small farmers. 2) Europe has a strong
  environmental movement, and 3) Europeans remember
  the legacy of abuse by genetic engineering (e.g.
  in The Holocaust).

16
What does GMO have to do with mad cow disease and
BGH?(Those Damn Cows Again!)
17
Bad Reputation!

• People worried about the history of Monsanto, and
  whether they could be expected to act ethically.
  After all, they argued Monsanto produced agent
  orange, PCBs, and bovine growth hormone.

18
But

• What do bovine growth hormone, and mad cow
  disease have to do with genetic engineering?

19
Profit Does not Morally O.K. (and consumers
worried that some business people do not know
this).

• The general worry is that profit oriented
  innovations have led businesses and farmers to
  save costs in unethical ways.

20
Oh, isnt that offal? (sorry)

• For example, by feeding cows the offal of other
  slaughtered animals farmers can save costs.
• Unfortunately, this sometimes has negative
  effects on human health.
• Offal caused the spread of mad cow disease.

21
False Promises

• Everyone assured consumers that they would be
  safe even when they were not safe.

22
Besides

• Bovine growth hormone is a genetically modified
  hormone that is given to cows. When cows get
  injections of the hormone this can cause
  lameness, infertility problems, as well as
  mastitis which must be treated with antibiotics.

23
Even Worse

• The antibiotics can get into milk and therefore
  into us. This is worrisome for a few reasons.
  One is allergies and the other is antibiotic
  resistance.

24
Those Dam Fish Again!

• Another example of genetic engineering is in
  creating transgenic fish such as when Alaskan
  Salmon are created. They can grow as much as 400
  to 600 faster than non transgenic fish.

25

• But what happens when these fish get out of the
  rearing facilities and breed with native fish?
• Genes for tolerating cold water makes the range
  of the fish bigger and transgenic fish may then
  be able to out compete natural ones. There are
  other possible problems as well.

26

• What things did Monsanto (and its supporters)
  point out about GMO to make consumers feel
  comfortable?

27
It has been done before and might be helpful!

• On the other side of the debate, some argued that
  all food has been improved by genetic engineering
  for centuries, via selective planting and
  breeding. People also argue that GM foods can
  reduce hunger.

28
What intellectual property rights questions does
genetic technology bring up? How does or could
GMO effect small (especially 3rd world) farmers?
29
Food Security!

• None of Monsantos strategies made people feel
  more comfortable, especially when Monsanto was
  rumored to have produced the terminator gene.
• The terminator gene would have been good for
  protecting intellectual property.

30

• Plants grown from seeds that are genetically
  engineered with the Terminator gene would not
  reproduce and produce their own seeds.

31
Safe Seeds

• So farmers who want to plant the same crops more
  than once, must go back to the company to buy
  more seeds each year. Even worse, people worried
  that the seeds of genetically modified organisms
  might cross with traditional crops.

32
Access to Seeds

• And if the crossing caused more Terminator seeds
  to be produced no further crops could be grown.
  More than 1.4 billion people, mostly in
  developing countries rely on recycled seeds as
  their primary seed source (see Laura Tanley, 7).

33
Monsantos Response

• Robert Schapiro responded on behalf of Monsanto
  that the Terminator genes would not be used.

34
Intellectual Property

• But this raises important issues about how to
  protect intellectual property. While first world
  farmers usually buy their seed every year, this
  is not option for most poor farmers in the Third
  World.

35

• To make matters even worse, people were afraid
  Monsanto would sue small farmers when they found
  their genes in those farmers plants.

36
Butterflies?

• Another interesting case is that of the monarch
  butterflies. Pollen from corn plants sometimes
  landed on milkweed plants which killed the
  caterpillar of the butterfly. This could have
  large impacts on the ecosystem. (One of the
  reasons the European commission did not approve
  GE products).

37
Testing?

• The worry was that there is no way to really
  tests GE foods until they were used in an open
  access environment at which time any negative
  side effects would be hard to control.
• Doubts were not assuaged by the proclamations of
  company officials, or even government officials.

38

• People worried that GE foods would have a
  monopoly on food, making it harder for the poor
  to survive.
• They even worried about Monsanto's weed killer
  Roundup causing cancer.

39
Why wasnt Monsanto good at convincing consumers
to buy GMO?
40
The stakeholders were upset!

• What was Monsanto doing wrong? One suggestion is
  that they only felt accountable to their
  shareholders. But apparently people did not
  agree with this philosophy, they thought that
  Monsanto should be held responsible to all the
  stakeholders (all of those affected by the
  decisions of the Corporation).

41

• This is one of the ideas behind forcing companies
  to internalize externalities. Soon, more and
  more countries boycotted GM foods. The problem
  was about public perception as much as it was
  about science.

42
What did they try to do to help their image?
43
Hiring Others

• Monsanto hired a public relations firm for
  perception management. But the firm itself was
  accused of wrongdoing. All attempts to solve the
  problem initiated by Monsanto were rejected.

44

• "While U.S. consumers understand that the role of
  business is to make profits and create jobs, they
  also believe the most important goal for
  companies will be to help build a better society"
  (Rick Moullin, 12).

45
What advantages did activists have over the large
corporation?
46
Networks!

• Greenpeace made genetically modified food a
  consumer issue, while Monsanto tried to make it a
  scientific or regulatory issue. Monsanto lost
  the battle.

47

• It didn't matter that genetically modified foods
  had been tested even more than conventional
  foods. People worried that campaign
  contributions were buying off the regulators.

48
It takes networks to fight networks

• Besides, that was not the point, Monsanto wasn't
  listening to consumers and people were mad.
• Thus, conventional advertising campaigns did
  little good and Monsanto didn't use the internet
  soon enough.

49

• The strategies and tactics of activist groups
  were more effective. The corporation's
  traditional hierarchy is one of its worst
  enemies.

50
Getting Connected

• See http//www.whybiotech.com, 1-800-980-8660.
  To see what the biotechnology Council eventually
  came up with.
• Eventually Monsanto tried to move their resources
  from agricultural to pharmaceutical industries.

51
Questions for reflection

• Does genetic modification constitute tampering
  with nature in some way that our other
  non-natural practices (from wearing clothes to
  selective breeding of cocker spaniels) does not?
  Why or why not?

52

• Are companies obligated to take into account
  organizations like Greenpeace, no matter how
  mistaken or self-serving they may be?
• Why would it be wrong to introduce transgenic
  species into the wild? Or would it be wrong?