Food is big business. Everyone eats.
Global food production is about profit.
In the North, store shelves are always full. It's cheap, we're told it's safe and healthy — and suddenly it's sustainable, because sustainable sells.
Sustainable agriculture used to be defined by peasant farmers, organic farmers, farmers who avoided using pesticides on crops, farmers who avoided using antibiotics and hormones on livestock, farmers who relied on integrated farming practices to make their farms regenerative — sustainable.
Now, Monsanto bills itself as a leader and innovator in sustainable agriculture. Elanco tells us technology yields sustainability and Elanco president Jeff Simmons tells us that access to safe, proven, efficiency-enhancing technologies ensures the three rights: food as a basic human right, choice as a consumer right, and sustainability as an environmental right.
What? Biotechnology giants are standing up for the rights of people and the environment? The same corporations who for decades have ridiculed consumer protests and environmental concerns because their technology, their GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms), their crop protection chemicals, their seed patents were all based on “sound science”?
But "sound science” has no scientific definition. It does not mean peer reviewed or well-documented research. “Sound science” is only a term, an ideological term, used to support a particular point of view, policy statement or technology. “Sound science” is little more than the opinions of so-called “experts” representing corporate interests.
For example, if the public has concerns about the environment, our health or the safety of our food after having been forced to accept scientific advancements like agricultural biotechnology, highly toxic pesticides, or “fracking,” our concerns are blown off because they are not based on “sound science.”
Without doubt, these practices are inherently unsafe and in the case of GMOs, ineffective as well. In the end, they are of benefit only to the industries that own the technology. And because our society is so afraid of doing anything that might anger industry or give industry a reason to outsource more jobs, science that does not support industry is not ”sound science.”
Simply put, “sound science” always supports the position of industry over people; corporate profit over food safety, the environment and public health. So when someone says something is based on “sound science," get ready to be duped.
“Sound science" is really all about deception. It paints a picture that is hard to resist, a story we want to believe. We wanted to believe that smoking was good for us, that nuclear energy was completely safe, that dioxin was not a problem — all stories backed by “sound science.”
Farmers wanted to believe that if they bought into the GMO system, they would actually make money, but the dream turned on them. Patented seeds and the cost of fertilizer and chemicals pushed small farmers out of business, their farms gobbled up by the corn/soy monoculture that made Monsanto, Cargill and the other multinational agri-business corporations rich.
Peasant farmers in the global South were pushed off their land, rain forests were cleared to grow more corn and soy and rural communities could no longer feed themselves.
Simmons also tells us that hunger should not be happening in the United States. He is dedicating his life to ensure that everyone has food security. “There is no issue more important in the next seven years than food security. A healthier, more sustainable, more peaceful world is possible. We've talked enough. We have enough technology. Now is the time to act.”
So people are hungry because there is not enough food. “Sound science” and technology are needed to grow more food and the owners of the seed patents, proprietary chemicals, the grain processors and meat packers will give the technology and food to those who need it?
Sure.
People are hungry because they are poor and they are poor because the corporate system has outsourced their jobs, ruined their local economy and taken their land away.
Farmers cannot feed people when seeds are patented and cost more than they are worth.
Farmers cannot feed people when the crop protection chemicals they must use poison the water and the air.
Farmers cannot feed people when local markets are destroyed by a global food system and when the “sound science” they are told will make them profitable and help them feed the hungry turns out to be a lie.
GMOs are safe and they hold the promise of feeding the world. Really? On vary rare occasions the “sound science” gets debunked by those behind the science.
GMOs will not feed the world. “If anyone tells you that GM is going to feed the world, tell them that it is not. … To feed the world takes political and financial will.” — Steve Smith, head of GM company Novartis Seeds UK (now Syngenta), public meeting on proposed local GM farm scale trial, Tittleshall, Norfolk, UK, March 29, 2000.
Jim Goodman is a dairy farmer from Wonewoc.
Please Wait…
As a researcher and a member of the Green Party, I've been frustrated with much of the progressive movement's handling and rhetoric on GMOs. It's riddled with what I consider propaganda: pictures of Frankenfood, Aliens in our cropland, corn whose kernels is replaced with little skull and crossbones. This kind of fear-inspiring propaganda is just as bad as similar propaganda done on the far right.
I think it's extremely important to make statements that are scientific and accurate. The phrase "sound science" is definitely misused as you point out in this article. Many anti-GMO people, however, also make a similar mistake in focusing most of their attention on the supposed health risks of GMO foods (specifically Bt and roundup resistant plants. Sometimes the whole debate on all GMOs gets reduced just to these two specific genetic modifications, whereas there are many different modifications out there although they are quite rare). True science does show that there are no human health risks associated with GMOs that go beyond health risks of conventional or organic foods. This is just a ton of propaganda and "telephone style" message spreading about the supposed risks.
A possible emerging concern is that usage of roundup herbicide is drastically increasing as weeds are becoming resistant. According to the 2013 article by Bohn et al, increased concentrations of roundup are therefore being observed in foods (it's not clear to me if it's on the surface or in the tissue) but this is new and a potential concern.
GMO corn and soy *have* gone through substantial health testing, and the idea of substantive equivalence is *not* a sham, like many anti-GMO people point out.
There are tons of reasons to be concerned about GMOs (and especially specific ones on a case-by-case basis) but human health concerns are among the smallest of these reasons. This article does a great job being clear about the real concerns and having them in a proper perspective.
Thank you so much. This was a breath of fresh air. We need more people like you.