GM backlash goes global - Brief Article

Ecologist, The, April, 2000

The amount of land planted with GM crops is expected to fall massively this year. And a new international agreement allows countries to restrict GM imports.

Public mistrust of GM food has given the biotechnology industry a serious kick in the teeth. This year the amount of land planted with GM seeds is expected to fall by as much as 25 per cent, reveals a report by the Worldwatch Institute. In the American midwest -- the 'rice bowl' of the States -- sales of GM maize are down 75 per cent on last year. 'The doubts are spreading like wildfire,' says Gary Goldbery, CEO of the American Corn Growers Association. 'Farmers don't know if they are going to have a market next week.'

This year, Monsanto is selling its GM seeds at a discount price, and in a desperate bid to salvage its corporate image, the beleaguered GM giant is changing its name to Pharmacia. Right across the biotechnology sector, share prices have tumbled. And now, new trade laws, agreed by some 130 nations in the international Biosafety Protocol meeting in January, allow countries to exercise the 'precautionary principle' when importing GM products; legislation that the US government and biotech industry has lobbied hard to avoid.

Liability is also a thorny issue. In Britain, the UK's leading farm insurance company, NFU Mutual, has refused to insure against damage caused to the environment by genetically modified crops. Friends of the Earth has called on the government to ensure that liability rests squarely on the shoulders of the biotechnology industry itself.