Resisting Biotechnology and the Commodification of Life.

• Author: Tokar, Brian

Just a few short years ago, biotechnologies such as genetic engineering and the cloning of animals were still widely viewed--by those who were aware of them at all--as strange new ideas, only recently emerged from the annals of science fiction. Compared to more pressing worldly concerns; from the destruction of forests to food contaminated by pesticides and other noxious chemicals, from hunger and homelessness in our own cities to widespread assaults on basic human rights throughout the world, biotechnology appeared to be one problem that could safely be put on the back burner. Clearly, this is no longer the case.

Sixty million acres of genetically engineered crops were grown in the United States in 1998, and nearly 90 million acres worldwide, accounting for nearly 40% of the world's soybean harvest, a third of the canola and 25% of the corn. These crops are rapidly finding their way into everything from processed foods to animal feed, with thoroughly unknown consequences. We are learning more about the effects of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), the first biotech product to significantly impact our food supply, from rising antibiotic use by dairy farmers to increased levels of the potent hormone IGF-1, which promotes the growth of cancer cells. In 1998, Canadian government scientists uncovered long-suppressed evidence of thyroid cysts and lesions in laboratory rats exposed to rBGH. These are only the first hints of how biotechnology will affect our food and our health.

Today, corn, potatoes and other crops are being engineered to secrete pesticides such as the bacterial toxin Bt. News of the damaging effects of these transgenic plants on beneficial insects such as ladybugs and lacewings is slowly getting out, mostly from European laboratories and research stations. Crops are also genetically altered to resist high doses of herbicides, from glyphosate (Roundup), to the virulent carcinogen bromoxynil. In September of 1998, we learned, contrary to a decade of assurances from biotech advocates, that genetically engineered plants may be more likely to exchange pollen with other plants than their non-genetically engineered cousins. Genetic contamination of neighboring crops has now been documented in the case of both corn and rapeseed (canola). Still, the number of scientists studying the ecological consequences of genetic engineering is minuscule compared to the legions of researchers and technicians who are employed to develop the next generation of genetically engineered crop varieties.

The synthetic Terminator gene, which literally sterilizes future generations of a plant's seeds, has helped heighten our understanding of the corporate agenda for genetically engineered agriculture, one in which the choices farmers make each year about their season's s crops are systematically appropriated by the agrochemical industry. The Terminator helped reveal the widespread appropriation of farmers' prerogatives that have been mounting in recent years, from the increased patenting of plant varieties, to the raising of crops under contract to a particular vendor. Specific methods, from tillage to pesticide applications, are now often spelled out in advance and certified by contract. Monsanto made headlines in 1998 with its aggressive prosecutions of farmers accused of "pirating" its seed varieties, that is allegedly saving and replanting the company's patented seeds.

The cloning of animals--from sheep to mice to cows to embryonic human cells--and the fusion of this technology with recent advances in reproductive techniques such as in vitro fertilization, raises even more profound questions for the future of life as we know it. How far are we from the day when companies will offer clones of their most productive milk and meat producers as commercial livestock? Will...