Do Those Who Pay Lobbyists Get What They Pay For?

The International Policy Network (IPN) is almost beyond belief. The head of the organisation, Julian Morris, has an article on India's recent decision to place a moratorium on the growing of genetically modified (GM) brinjal (aubergine, egg-plant). Morris puts this decision down to their use of the 'precautionary principle', which Morris doesn't approve of. He refers to India's high rates of poverty and malnutrition, implying that their decision to reject GM brinjal (for the moment) will contribute to these problems.

For several reasons well known to Indian farmers, GM crops do not reduce poverty, far from it. For a start, GM seeds and other inputs are much more expensive than conventional ones. Secondly, the usage of these inputs goes up, steadily, the longer the crops are grown in the same place, so profits go down. Thirdly, yields go down, reducing profits even further. Fourthly, none of the other promised advantages of GM crops have materialised. GM has been an expensive waste of money, of land and of people's lives.

As for malnutrition, the previous points make it clear that GM crops are not going to have much positive impact on this. We have been promised crops with higher nutritional value but, in addition to getting less food from GM varieties, there is no nutritional benefit. According to Wikipedia, the precautionary principle "states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those who advocate taking the action".

What could Morris have against such a principle in relation to GM? There is more than a suspected risk of harm, of several kinds, to the public and the environment; there is little or no scientific consensus but nor has there been much scientific research; the burden of proof should lie with the proponents of GM, but they have consistently failed to do any research that could allay fears. Morris says his disagreement is that you can't prove a negative. But proponents are not being asked to prove a negative, they are being asked to carry out adequate research to show that GM crops are safe to humans, animals and the environment, economically viable, politically viable, ethical and many other things. The risks of not doing this research are too great.

The Indian minister in question, Jairam Ramesh, did not simply grab whatever expedient he found handy and place a moratorium on GM brinjal. He held a lengthy and comprehensive consultation. This is something an industry paid lobbyist who runs an institution that pretends to be an educational think tank, such as Morris, would have little understanding of. People who voted for Ramesh were asked their opinion and they said 'no', overwhelmingly. If Morris had his way, Ramesh would have paid large consultancy fees to Morris and his ilk and done what they advised, regardless of what Indian farmers and consumers wanted.

Morris goes on to fault the use of the precautionary principle by the EU to ban animal growth hormones. He sees this decision as flawed (really, read the article!). But his grasp of basic logic is as poor as his knowledge about GM organisms. He argues that water and oxygen would be banned under the EU's interpretation of the precautionary principle 'if they were classified as pesticides'. That's like saying that pedestrians would have to obey speed limits if they were classified as vehicles.

Like many interested parties who have their snouts in the GM gravy train, Morris sees any opposition to GM or any other dangerous technology as anti-science, anti-technology, rather than sensible criticism and protest against health and safety issues being decided purely on the basis of profits for multinationals. He seems to have little time for anything remotely like a scientific argument. He's not too astute politically, either. The "small but politically savvy band of opponents" in India that he refers to are none other than the Indian electorate, people who will be most directly affected by decisions about further exposures to GM risks.

The IPN website claims to have 'ideas for a free society' and to be 'bringing down barriers to enterprise and trade'. It would be more accurate to say 'this is as free as it gets, put up with it'. If I thought Morris was trying to clarify moot points, to analyse certain alternative interpretations of data, to shed light on difficult issues, I would at least defend his right to do that, even if I didn't agree with him. But there is no sense, science, logic, even political clout, behind what Morris writes. He seems to be writing utter nonsence because that's what he gets paid to do. But if the quality of his arguments are anything to go by, he doesn't get paid very much.

Viva La Via Campesina

Today I received an email from La Via Campesina, an " international movement of peasants, small and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers". This communication declares that La Via Campesina characterizes this current moment as "one of arrogance and authoritarianism on the part of the United States, the European Union and transnational corporations". It goes on to state that:

The increase of military presence and military bases in various parts of the world, “humanitarian” invasions and occupations which indicate war, the occupation of markets and territories, and the military presence to control energy resources, water, and natural biodiversity are all tactics derived from civilization’s crisis of capitalism and the logics of exploitation, racism, and patriarchy. These tactics also work to disguise the climate crisis in illegitimate negotiations.

Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania (MVIWATA, the Tanzanian Network of Farmers' Groups) is a member of La Via Campesina, so I hope they attend the movement's 'Assembly of Social Movements' in Bolivia in April. Perhaps they will also represent their neighbours, such as Kenya, Uganda and others. Only a handful of African countries are presently represented. Kenya is not. But they need to be.

It's hard to think of any strategy that could be worse for Tanzania and other developing countries than a concerted move towards large scale farming. Yet most members of a group of several hundred 'researchers' recently agreed that "the domination of the agricultural sector by small scale farmers is a serious problem".

A serious problem for whom? For wealthy politicians, who own much of the country's best land? For the multinationals, who want to control the country's ability to feed itself? For those who want to see more African land dedicated to the production of biofuels that will allow people in wealthy countries to continue their wasteful lifestyles? For those who see Tanzanian land and people as 'assets', to be bought up to enable them to produce food for people in wealthy countries?

These 'researchers', who must spend their time reading tabloid newspapers and the outputs of right-wing, imperialist think-tanks, rightly point out that small-scale farmers lack capital and skills. But they conclude that they should therefore become the de facto slaves for those unscrupulous enough to take over much of the country's land, natural resources and productive capacity.

If people lack skills, and it's not just Tanzanian small farmers who lack skills, this is because of the continuing failure of the education system. Many people don't attend school at all, many attend for a few years and many leave with very little practical knowledge of any kind. But this is not a reason to send in the large scale commercial farmers, ready to "inject capital and technology". People need better education, whether they are small scale farmers or from any other walk of life.

If the infrastructure is failing people, the infrastructure needs to be improved. Foreign land grabbers and multinationals are not going to do that. But in order to market goods even to Tanzanians, the country needs proper transport networks, reliable and widespread electricity supplies, communication networks and the like.

If, as these people suggest, Tanzanian agriculture is scaled up, what will happen to the subsistence farmers? They probably make up the largest economic group in Tanzania. The researchers' answer is the 'outgrower' system. Farmers become 'outgrowers' for some factory or exporter, producing a crop, usually a monoculture, usually not a food crop, to be exported. The farmer gets a very small price, they middle person gets a large price and the destination country converts the primary good into some high value product, often sold back to Tanzania at extortionate prices.

The country's Prime Minister Pinda uses the examples of tea, sugar and sisal to demonstrate how successful the outgrower system has been. Perhaps Pinda doesn't go out much but I think he will find that the majority of tea, sugar and sisal workers and outgrowers earn a pittance. And these crops are not essential food crops. People need to feed themselves and their dependents and they need to produce enough food to ensure the country's food sovereignty, the right of peoples "to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international market forces".

To avoid being tricked out of what's left of their natural resources and land, Tanzanians need to be aware of philosophies such as that of La Via Campesina. Most Tanzanians fit into one or other of the movement's categories. Because those Tanzanians who don't belong to any of those categories, rich businesspeople, politicians and the like, are ready to sell everything to the highest bidder. And, as usual, the money won't 'trickle down'.

La Via Campesina's objectives include the preservation of land (currently threatened by massive levels of land grabbing), water (threatened by all agricultural production for export, but especially biofuel and non-food crops), seeds (threatented by the attempts by genetically modified organism producers to control seed supplies) and other natural resources (threatened by natural resource exploitation which is almost entirely controlled by foreign multinationals). Other objectives include food sovereignty and sustainable agricultural production based on small and medium sized producers.

If Pinda and his colleagues are concerned about the country's low agricultural output, there are many initiatives that can be employed. As mentioned, improved education and infrastructure. But also, an improvement in the economic circumstances of the majority of people. The country is relatively rich in resources, but they are being effectively stolen by foreigners. There's (so far) no shortage of wealth in the country, distribution is the serious problem.

Most Tanzanians are just about getting by, right now. If agriculture is scaled up, by whatever means, the majority will lose the little access they have to food and other vital goods. Tanzanians need to feed Tanzanians. They don't need to be exploited by commercial and political interests. And the same applies to Kenyans and other Africans.

The final word must go to La Via Campesina:

The current industrialized agribusiness model has been deliberately planned for the complete vertical integration and to dominate all agriculture activities. This model exploits workers and concentrates economic and political power. La Via Campesina advocates a decentralized model where production, processing, distribution and consumption are controlled by the people the communities themselves and not by transnational corporations.

Deliberate GM Contamination of Kenya's Maize?

India's notorious genetically modified (GM) cotton plantations, which even Monsanto now admits are a failure, were not established after consultation or adequate research. The GM seed was introduced surreptitiously and spread far and wide and was eventually accepted on the grounds that it was too late to avoid it. Monsanto have profited considerably from this 'accident', having upped the prices for their seeds and other inputs many times over the years. One of the many failures of these GM seeds is that fertilizers and pesticides need to be used in ever increasing quantities.

Now, the pests have developed resistance, no amount of pesticide will control the problem. Yet Monsanto's solution to this is to roll out a new version of their GM cotton seed, with a new set of inputs and even higher prices. The seed has contaminated much of India's cotton growing areas and much of the country's arable land. But no amount of destruction is enough for Monsanto. They want to control what India does with its cotton and, eventually, all its other agricultural products.

I have argued elsewhere that what happened to India could also happen to other countries and whole continents. Well, it seems like someone is already trying to contaminate Kenya's staple crop, maize, with GM maize. 40,000 tonnes of GM maize was imported from South Africa earlier this year, at a time when the country had a surplus of the crop. A Kenyan company called Louis Dreyfus Ltd imported the stuff. It is sitting in Mombasa Port right now.

Questions are being raised about how this could happen and worries are being expressed about some of the possible effects of GM contamination. It is possible that some Kenyans are confused about the dangers that GM contamination poses. If this consignment were distributed and used as seed, farms directly affected would also contaminate farms around them. Maize is the most commonly grown crop here and it's grown for Kenyan consumption.

But other crops, grown for export, could also become contaminated. One of Kenya's top exports is fruit and vegetables and much of it goes to Europe. Europe has fairly strict laws about allowing the importation of GM contaminated foods. Kenya could end up exporting very little. Tea and coffee are also among its top exports but they too could end up being compromised by GM contamination. Anyone who thinks that opposition to GM foods is just anti-scientific, luddite or in any way mistaken should do some reading up on the subject.

One wonders who is behind allowing GM products to enter the country, who could profit from such a move? Has it happened before and is Kenya's maize already contaminated? And will this consignment of contaminated maize be allowed to be distributed or will it be sent back to South Africa, who have already fallen for the GM trick? I don't feel very confident about the future for some of Kenya's most important exports.

Education is Not a Prophylactic, it's a Human Right

When a school girl becomes pregnant here, she is usually excluded from school. Ostensibly, she is allowed to return to school once she has delivered but, in practice, most never return to school. She is excluded on the grounds that she is a 'bad example' to her peers. The boy or man responsible for her pregnancy, apparently, does not set such a bad example. School boys who make school girls pregnant, if identified, are not excluded. Adults who make school girls pregnant can't be excluded, but they are rarely punished. Sometimes the adults who make school girls pregnant are their teachers.

So I was surprised to hear that seven teachers, one of whom is a principal, have been interdicted for such an offence in Bomet and Chepalungu districts, Kenya. In Bomet, 37 girls have become pregnant and have dropped out of school. Whether any of the girls are underage or not is less important than the fact that the teachers have behaved inappropriately for people in their position. It is hard to believe that they have not taken advantage of their position, in addition to breaching the trust of both their pupils and the parents of the pupils.

An official in the district referred to the teachers as 'amorous', which doesn't seem to be the most appropriate term and seems to miss the seriousness of the offences. Amorousness is not a crime but sexual assault and sexual assault on a minor are. Teachers are supposed to educate their pupils to enable them to avoid things like underage sex, sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy. The schools may be willing to allow the girls to return to school later but the damage has been done. Some may return, but they will be at a serious disadvantage as a result of their experience.

Another article suggests that education is 'crucial to lowering [HIV] prevalence' because HIV prevalence in Tanzania has dropped among those with secondary education whereas it has remained static among those with little or no education. I object to the suggestion that education is good just because it reduces the risk of HIV. Education is a human right. It is an intrinsic good, not just an instrumental good that reduces HIV prevalence.

However, the article's conclusions must be difficult to establish because primary and secondary students who become pregnant, the ones who were least likely to be using condoms (and therefore at most risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections), are excluded from school. They are no longer in the demographic in question. But they can not be excluded from the 'little or no education' demographic. This may skew the figures, somewhat. (I don't have access to the full paper, so the authors may have allowed for this possibility).

I'm glad to hear that education officials are realising that when a girl gets pregnant, a male is involved, either a man or a boy. They are also starting to admit that some teachers are involved and are punishing the perpetrators, rather than just the victims. But education, and education for girls, in particular, still appears to be seen as something less important than education for boys. And it also appears to be seen as a way of reducing HIV prevalence, rather than a human right. Well educated boys and girls, men and women, will be able to ensure their own health and welfare, that's why it is a human right.

The Gates/GM Progeny

Some of the most deceitful and unscrupulous people in the business world want to exploit Africa and one of the richest people in the world is spending huge amounts of money trying to help them. This person, Bill Gates, considers himself to be a philanthropist. Yet he is party to efforts to tie farmers into agreements that will commit them to expensive farm inputs, such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, will probably reduce yields, will have significant health consequences, will increase dependence and food insecurity and will generally make things worse than they already are.

Someone who really wanted to benefit people in developing countries with a lot of money at their disposal could do many things. In agriculture, they could develop indigenous crops that are selectively bred to resist drought, flooding, increased salinity and other adverse conditions. In infrastructure, they could provide people with clean water and give them access to better and more sustainable forms of energy and fuel. This would also confer great health benefits. There are numerous things that could be done to improve people's economic conditions, their education and their skills.

But Gates prefers technical solutions, mostly ones that will make his foundation, along with some people connected with it, rich. Never mind that these 'solutions' will worsen the situation in developing countries, that doesn't seem to be a worry for this 'philantrocapitalist'. Perhaps he's just an old style capitalist in disguise. Genetically modified (GM) crops have been a disaster in developed and developing countries alike. His efforts to tackle a handful of diseases while ignoring the conditions that allow those diseases to spread will have few long term benefits. Just because he is rich, he shouldn't have the right to interfere with the welfare of so many vulnerable people, especially at the same time as claiming to be doing good.

Another article sees Gates as propping up a form of neo-colonialism. GM crops are an inappropriate, imported technology, designed for large scale industrial farming like that predominant in the US. Most African farmers are small farmers and they are the ones likely to suffer if they are pushed out of farming by GM. It's not the big farmers and landowners who can afford industrial scale farming that are suffering from food shortages. And those who are suffering from food shortages will quickly find that GM will not feed them, either. They are short of food because they are poor, GM foods will only increase the prices and reduce access further.

It's time that people realised that GM does not have any advantages for poor people, or even for relatively well off people. It is designed to make money for the handful of multinationals that develop the technology. And anyone who claims to be doing good by imposing GM on poor farmers in developing countries is a liar and an opportunist.

Development is Not All About Money

It's basic science that if you insulate a hot cooking pot properly, the food inside will continue cooking even after you remove the heat source. But however basic, probably most people in the world cook with a continuous heat source, gas, electricity, parafin, wood, charcoal, whatever.

So it comes as a surprise to some people, people who would recognise the basic science, that you don't need to keep the food over a continuous heat source. You can bring things to the boil and then transfer them to a heat box, hay box, cooking basket, fireless cooker, whatever you want to call it. This insulated container will allow the food to continue cooking. Even if it's something slow to cook, like beans, it will eventually cook completely.

And when people don't even have ready access to the basic science, seeing food cook without any obvious heat source seems like magic. Of course, there is an obvious heat source, but when the food is removed and put in a stone cold container, it still cooks. Using this method you can save a lot of money on fuel. I don't think I need to rehearse the benefits of cutting fuel use or cutting costs of any kind.

The technology goes way back but interest in it seems to wax and wane. I've heard it was popular during and after the second world war, when there were shortages of food and fuel. And not only is the technology widely known and cheap, it can even be totally free to make one of these devices. Then it saves you money and you can use it to cook, keep things hot, even keep water hot all night so you can use it to wash with in the morning.

Here in Nakuru, working with Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group, I'm hoping that most people will be interested in making and using this neat trick. Most of them use charcoal or wood. These are expensive and trees are in short supply. It also requires a lot of work to search for fuel. Any way of cutting fuel use and costs would be welcome as most people in and around Nakuru are poor. And using cooking baskets even reduces smoke inhalation, water use and degradation of the nutritional value of the food because it cooks at low temperatures. And washing up is easier!

You can buy cooking baskets, marketed as fireless cookers, in the supermarkets. They are fine looking and work very well. But they are expensive. Not many people would shell out the equivalent of a whole week's salary, perhaps even two week's salary, for one of these. But the good news is that they are easy to make and they can be made using locally available materials.

On Friday we went to Athinai, a place totally dominated by sisal plantations and some factories that use the raw material for very basic products, such as ropes. The best of it is exported as a raw material, earning the company less than it should and earning locals even less. Especially considering the factory's habit of not bothering to pay people for months and even years.

Anyhow, the factory has some by-products, some of which are dumped, some of which are sold for good money and some of which are sold for very little money. The dry fibres, even the ones that are not fit to be sold, make perfect padding for cooking baskets. People in Athinai can get it in large supplies, free of charge. If they can't get enough, or if the factory starts to charge for it, they can use rolled up newspapers, dry banana leaves, hay, straw or anything dry and light that is a good insulator.

Instead of weaving expensive baskets and using other materials that go into the beautiful cooking baskets you see in supermarkets, I got a couple of used sacks in the market, one small and one large. People can get sacks free of charge if they know where to look or who to ask. Then all they have to do is stuff the large bag, make a little nest for the samll bag, which will hold the pot. A piece of material of some kind, stuffed with the stuffing and tied off or sewn, will do as the lid. Then tie off the big sack to make it all snug and you're cooking.

In front of the people who turned up for the demonstration, we stuffed a pile of sisal waste, something people there are so familiar with, into the sack as described. A pot of rice was brought to the boil and transferred to the cooking basket. And 40 minutes later people were shown the cooked rice. Not only were they astounded, but they were invited to take the whole thing apart so they could be sure there was no trick involved, which they did.

Cooking just for myself, I spend about ten shillings a day on charcoal but people with families can easily spend twice or three times that amount. It is estimated that you can cut charcoal (or wood) use by half by employing a cooking basket. So the amount saved is considerable. If someone earns 150 shillings a day working in the fields and they spend 600 shillings a month on charcoal, it's like getting an extra two day's wages without having to do the work. 24 extra days a year!

Rather than just concentrating on income generating activities, Ribbon of Hope is also looking at ways of cutting expenditure. These cooking baskets are perfect because they need not cost anything and they start saving you money straight away. Coupled with solar cookers, the amount of money people could save throughout the year begins to look like an excellent bonus. If you only use the solar cooker on 100 days of the year, that's another 6 day's wages to add to make a cool extra one and a half months. And as we don't have to give people this estimated 4,500 shillings a year, we think it's a pretty sustainable way of helping people with their finances.

Genetically Modified Cotton Has Failed, Says Monsanto

Thanks for telling us after so many people have wasted their time and money and many people have even lost their lives as a result of this failure. Scientists who have not been bought off by the biotech industry have been warning against the use of these crops for years. They have been calling for proper research into what their true consequences are before imposing them on an unprepared world. But now it's too late.

What about all the people who have destroyed their land because of the industry's lies? What about the farmers who have run into such huge debts that they have found no way out but to commit suicide? If anyone knew that these crops were designed to fail, it was Monsanto and the rest of the industry. In some cases they have failed to do proper research, in other cases they have supressed the results of their research. Instead of doing the groundwork necessary, they have simply paid off powerful people to do their dirty work. Who needs salespeople when 'democratically elected' leaders will do the work at a far lower cost?

The president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, may have been bought off by Monsanto or the industry as a whole. Or maybe he's just brain dead. He has said that he is against GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) but that they are inevitable. What could he mean by this? That the GM industry is going to do what it wants, regardless of what we insignificant members of the electorate want? That all the people who could possibly prevent GMO from being imposed on us have been bought off?

We can only speculate. Buzek goes on to say that because we can't win the battle, he is not going to fight it. He also said that Europe would lose out on 'competitivity' if we don't accept GMOs. There's a bit of overdetermination here; does he feel that we shouldn't fight something that is advantageous to us or does he feel that we shouldn't fight a battle we cannot win? He only needs to argue for one of these, not both. They could both be true but we don't know which one sways this foolish man. If you object to my calling Buzek foolish, just read the rubbish he comes out with about only genetically modified rice being able to grow in Bangladesh.

Given the evidence for Buzek's small brain, he probably has a short memory and a limited capacity for research and comprehension. But GM cotton was released in India because it had already been passed around unofficially and had already contaminated a large proportion of the cotton sector. It wasn't released after careful consideration and proper consultation (don't be silly!). I'm sure this was not as a result of anything the GM industry did, no doubt it was just an accident. But that is no reason for Europe or any other continent to make the same mistakes.

And just in case Buzek is worried about the silly rumour that the Vatican was pro-GM, that was just bunkum. The GM obsessed cardinal who was so keen on compromising the health and welfare of so many people has been replaced with what must be one of the few Catholic leaders who has a grain of sense. Cardinal Peter Turkson realises that GM crops could be used as "weapons of hunger and poverty". Not only does he realise this, but he actually considers this to be an undesirable outcome. He realises that GM will lead to the greater dependence of the weak and poor on the strong and rich, environmental degradation, higher costs and an increase in the number of food insecure and starving people in the world. Already, the number of starving people has increased steadily as the percentage of GM crops has increased.

Some commentators have wondered about why Monsanto might want to claim publicly that GM cotton has failed. They have pointed out that Monsanto has now produced a new generation of GM cotton. Monsanto knew long ago that the first generation had failed and they now want people to change to the new generation, which employs a second modified gene and requires an enlarged set of inputs in terms of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. It also requires greater expenditure on those wonderful pieces of intellectual property we used to call seeds, those things we used to be able to collect for free at the end of the growing season.

No, you don't have to back out of GM cotton just because the whole live experiment has failed, and you probably can't, anyhow. You just have to buy more expensive seeds and invest in more expensive pesticides and fertilizer. After all, you are part of this experiment. If it goes down the pan, so do you.