Cynical Trade

In Central America some eighty percent of the food aid provided by USAID and the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This is one of the several steps being take toward the monopolisation of food production.

By Ricardo Navarro and Eva Rasmussen

07. April 2005

Is it better to go bed hungry or to eat maize, rice and beans that have been genetically modified? This is the question being posed by the main transnational companies, such as Monsanto and Aventis, and which apparently the WFP is echoing. However, hunger is not caused by lack of food but by poverty. Hunger is a political problem, and the situation only worsens with the introduction of genetically modified seeds. Their presence means that small farmers must purchase seeds each year, instead of using their own seeds, as they have done traditionally for centuries. In fact, small producers in Central America are caught in a vise: on the one hand are the genetically modified or transgenic seeds, which hamper their traditional subsistence model, while on the other is the Free Trade Agreement with the Dominican Republic and the United States (DR-CAFTA), which, it is expected, will be ratified by the US Congress. This implies that these farmers will soon have to compete on the local market with American agricultural products subsidised by the US government and which are often cheaper and of better quality.

With the support of the US government, the transnational pharmaceutical companies are pursuing an aggressive marketing policy. On 15 May 2003 the US Senate passed legislative reform intended to fight HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which indirectly obliges these developing countries to accept genetically modified food aid. The new law states that those countries which refuse to accept food aid will not be taken into account when distributing resources for the prevention and treatment of these life-threatening diseases.

The first protests against genetically modified food aid in the year 2000 took place in India and Latin America. In 2002 that criticism hardened, and despite the hunger existing in several countries in Latin America and southern Africa, they rejected the modified food aid. This past month of March, the Central American Alliance for the Protection of Biodiversity, made up of environmental NGOs, presented research documenting that 80% of the food aid provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) contained transgenics. After analysing samples of rice and soybeans in both the food aid and in commercial exports to El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Cost Rica and the Dominican Republic, the independent US laboratory Genetic ID reached the conclusion that the main inroad being used to introduce genetically modified products is through food aid. 

In the Guatemalan package the laboratory found the genetically modified maize brand StarLink, which is considered unfit for human consumption in both the EU and the US, due to its potential allergen contents. Samples taken in all Central American countries showed traces of the modified herbicide Roundup Ready, which is produced by the transnational Monsanto, and which while permitted in the United States, is on the black list in European Union.

In Denmark it is not required to inform the public on the label that a product is genetically modified, although if the contents exceeds 0.9% it must appear on the list of ingredients. This is not the case in Central America, where there are no laws mandating a description of ingredients in merchandise. In any case, both producers and the various governments publish propaganda in favour of transgenics. Through the “Improved Seeds” programme, for example, governments give small farmers improved seeds in exchange for an equal amount of native seeds. Samples taken in Nicaragua show that these improved seeds are genetically modified. 

It is the large transnational companies such as Monsanto and Aventis that own the patents to transgenics. At the beginning they sell their seeds cheaply, or even give them away. Meanwhile in the supermarkets, small, often semi-soft native tomatoes are crowded off the shelves by imported tomatoes that last longer and at first sight are bursting with health. Native products are increasingly displaced. Transgenics open the way for transnationals to monopolize food production. This development is aggravated by the Free Trade Agreement, whose logic is to blaze the frontier for the large companies. 

The objective of the DR-CAFTA is to promote trade and investment. The treaty, for example, allows Central American companies to participate in bidding for public works in the US. But what Central American company has the capacity to build streets in New York? For their part, there are a number of US companies that can line up in Central America. The FTA is much like a boxing match between a heavyweight and a flyweight. 

But regardless of the FTA and transgenics – why aren’t small farmers taking care of their own native seeds, as they have done traditionally? If they have participated in the “Improved Seeds” programme, they are in trouble, as the samples taken in Nicaragua show. Genetically modified seeds are frequently as infertile as seedless oranges. Further, one or another company will own the patent for the product. This means that small farmers will have to open their wallets if they want to acquire seeds. However, their wallets are very often slim if not indeed empty. This situation allows large, subsidised producers in the north to sell their harvest among other things as food aid to small farmers in Central America who no longer have the means to crop their land. 

Food sovereignty in developing countries is threatened by transgenics and the FTAs, which unilaterally favour large firms and countries. The governments in poor countries could, by working together with small farmers and civil society, make an effort to preserve its native seeds. As we have recently learned again from crisis brought about by the rise in oil prices, it is dangerous to depend upon a single product. Contributors to the PMA, such as Denmark, could on the one hand lobby to at the very least introduce proper labelling on food aid (though it would be best to simply exclude transgenics from these programmes entirely). On the other, it could exert pressure to further the removal of subsidies to farmers in the north. 

Ricardo Navarro is director of CESTA, the Salvadoran Centre for Appropriate Technology, an environmental NGO.

Eva Rasmussen is a journalist working with MS in Central America.