GENETICALLY-modified food products could have been on your table today. After the recent controversy about the issue you probably care more about this than before.
Two months ago Socialist Outlook wrote: "Despite all the reasons for not having been interested in food, there are powerful reasons to expect food issues to become more important.
Of course we could claim the credit, but perhaps this is a good moment to step back. There has been considerable heat about whether Dr Arpad Pusztai's potatoes were poisonous to his rats, and if so whether this has any relation to the food you may find yourself eating. Most lay people can make little judgement about the science, especially when there is dispute even about what research has been conducted. What we can and do judge is that a system of 'regulation' of food production which can allow the feeding of rendered cattle to herbivorous cattle and the BSE crisis is untrustworthy. Defenders of the process of assessing new products depict the whole process as rational and innocent. Derek Burke, chair of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and the nine years I chaired the committee, no political or commercial pressures were put on me. Only once was I lobbied by a company, and the lobbying had no effect at all on the committee's decision."
Such figures complain that Pusztai's research has not been validated and that if there is any cause for concern they are the best people to judge it. Meanwhile the growing and selling of GM produce in Britain should continue. In the words of James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA: "You should only have a moratorium when there is a possibility of harm that you can quantify." As with, say, exposure to nuclear radiation from leaks, the promise is that all is well, with the fallback that something can be. done about it in the future if not. University professors who belong to various quangos try to offer reassurance but fail to convince. Universities feel financially squeezed and, in disciplines in natural science especially, success is measured as much by the ability to raise research grants and strike up partnerships with commercial interests as any other criterion. For individual scientists, there is also the those who have been in the government's 'advisory committees' have already been down this path as they make the way to the top of their field.
Controversy has been raging in the press. about experimental maize and potatoes in Britain. Meanwhile one of the British government's activities has been allying with the US government at talks possibility that convenient and saleable research work will lead to a better paid job heading a better-funded research unit within or funded by major capitalist firms. Many of The British government has been allying with the US government at talks in Colombia to water down proposed controls on the international trade in GM products in Colombia to water down proposed controls on the international trade in GM products, especially as it affects soya and maize.
The argument is all about 'free trade', but what this means principally is the opportunity for big firms like Monsanto to get their produce into all corners of the world market. Resistance in countries like India is based on the fear that if farmers can no longer collect seed from their own crops, but have to pay the supplier every year, many will not survive. They will also have no security if new crops fail because of unexpected problems.
Any Labour MPs who can make it into the government have already proved their willingness to sell any principles they used to have. Labour ministers speak of 'the public interest' and waiting for the results of research'. However as with the Tories, seats on the board wait for ministers and civil servants whose actions benefit the big monopolies. Capitalist companies see big opportunities for monopoly profits in food. Together with their friends and dependants in government and the scientific establishment, they want to control the debate on food, to keep it 'sensible'. Some of the fears expressed in the last few weeks are extreme, such as escaping genes giving rise to 'Triffid-like monster plants'. However the issue of control of information and of the technology is central. Its emergence in the recent debate is invaluable, and we must build on that.