Biotech "feeding the poor:" PR on life and death.

• Author: Sharratt, Lucy

It now appears that the biotech industry is, like never before, counting on the success of arguments that genetic engineering will "feed the world." Monsanto in particular has always stated that biotech is needed in order to feed the hungry. But now this argument has taken concrete form in the shape of surplus GE corn that the US government wants to get rid of as food aid to developing countries. The stakes are higher now, particularly for Monsanto whose business is now wholly based on agricultural biotechnology (no pharmaceutical profits to rely on) and therefore depends on pushing open new markets and winning over a skeptical public.

Biodevastation 7 was a unique and important opportunity to hear the true and full story of Zambia's rejection of GE food. We were fortunate that Mwananyanda Lewanika of the National Institute for Scientific & Industrial Research in Zambia joined the event to share this story and that Michael Hansen of Consumers Union added his experience to this same tale. Biodevastation gave me the information I needed to counter misinformation and propaganda that flooded my dinner table at a recent "dialogue" on how biotechnology can be made accessible to developing countries. Discussions at this one event stressed to me how important it is to corporations that we believe the message that GE is the solution to hunger. Alternatively, I now understand more fully how critical it is for us to be prepared to argue on this point.

At this dinner, a representative from Monsanto was heartfelt when he raised his voice to tell me that he believed Zambia's decision was the wrong one and asked, "How could the Zambian government let their people starve?" The information I gathered at Biodevastation allowed me to reply, without hesitation, that people in Zambia are not dying from starvation and that these reports were exaggerated. [This was my third intervention on the topic in half an hour since the question of food aid was the preoccupation.] This exchange told me two things. First, it told me that Monsanto and other corporations are relying heavily on this emotional message to pull people into defending and even promoting biotech and, secondly, I learned that people from all walks of life really are buying into the argument.

Biotech corporations are pressing hard through advertisements and newspaper articles to sway guilty, well-fed consumers in the north who know very little about the true causes of hunger. Though we in North America...