GM wheat, poisoned bread, and deception

Below we offer our edit of a Deepl translation of an article in Spanish by the Argentine journalist Darío Aranda, published on the grassroots-supported website Tierra Viva. The article, about Bioceres’ GM herbicide-tolerant wheat, HB4, was prompted by the USDA's deregulation of this GMO for cultivation in the US.

While Darío’s article focuses on the high level of opposition to the GM wheat, including from scientists, as well as the lack of independent science attesting to its value, it’s possible that it may be defeated by good old-fashioned market forces. Bloomberg reported on 10 September that Bioceres’ shares “were on track for their biggest daily drop in two years as its ground-breaking genetically modified wheat seeds face setbacks”. The shares fell nearly 16% in New York trading, the most in one day since July 2022, “after it posted earnings that missed estimates for the quarter ending June 30 and as executives highlighted headwinds for its HB4 wheat strain”.

Bioceres’ CEO Federico Trucco was quoted as saying it may take up to three years to adapt genetics and breed enough seeds to sell to farmers. Bloomberg notes that even in Argentina, where roll-out of HB4 wheat is most advanced, “Bioceres still has hurdles to surpass”.

For example, “trying to expand acreage outside of closely controlled identity-preserved planting will entail ‘a more patient approach to growth,’ Trucco told analysts. The push with seed breeders and farmers needs fine-tuning, Trucco said, citing ongoing industry doubts over GMO wheat and high royalty charges for HB4.”
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GM wheat, poisoned bread, and deception
By Darío Aranda
Tierra Viva, 29 Aug 2024
https://agenciatierraviva.com.ar/trigo-transgenico-pan-con-veneno-y-mas-espejos-de-colores/
[GMWatch edit of Deepl translation from Spanish]

GM wheat has taken a step towards being grown in the United States. And although there are no known investigations into whether it is safe to eat, in Argentina the controversial flour is already being consumed. It’s a story of agribusiness, the violation of rights, and confirmation of the scandal of experimenting on the population.

The US Department of Agriculture has approved the cultivation of GM wheat. It is yet another confirmation of how a very small group of powerful people get to decide the food, health, and suffering of large sectors of the population. The world’s first GM wheat, from the Argentinean company Bioceres and the multinational Florimond Desprez (France), is grown with the dangerous agrotoxin glufosinate ammonium [banned in the European Union]. Below is a review of the lies and violation of rights associated with GMOs.

HB4 GM wheat is an unprecedented step in the advance of agribusiness over the rights of populations. Bread, a food that is as ancient as it is central to people’s lives, is being transformed into a product with health risks.

The media partners of agribusiness reported the news from the United States. They even described it as a “milestone” for national agriculture. Only 24 hours later, the company Bioceres issued its position on X (formerly Twitter): “The HB4 wheat crop has reached the US. HB4 technology is the only drought-tolerant technology in the world, and this new approval shows that Argentine science continues to lead the way in finding solutions to major global challenges.”

However, Infobae, based on information from Reuters, points out: “According to the industry group US Wheat Associates, before drought-tolerant HB4 wheat can be marketed in the United States, additional measures, including field trials, are still needed. ‘It will take years for Bioceres to complete the additional steps,’ the organisation said.”

The world’s first GM wheat is a big step for agribusiness and a step backwards for the world's population. For the moment, ‘only’ the population of Argentina is the guinea pig with which GM flour (consumed in such products as bread, pastries, noodles and empanadas) is being tested. The move to deregulation in the United States is a warning sign for other countries and markets where the grain is exported.

There are many reasons to reject (or at least question) GM wheat:

* There is no publicly available evidence of its harmlessness for the health of the population and the environment.

* The supposed ‘studies’ of the company Bioceres-Florimond Desprez are confidential. No independent scientist, nor the public, has access to these papers.

* Although it is advertised as ‘drought resistant’, there is no public evidence to support this claim. At the same time, it is cynical that the same model (agribusiness) that is at the centre of the climate crisis is now being offered as part of the supposed solution to the disaster they produced.

* Available official studies show that it is less productive than conventional wheat.

* The National Commission on Biotechnology (Conabia), the central body for GM approvals in Argentina, is totally dominated by the same companies that sell GMOs. That’s as unusual as it is scandalous: the same people who submit the authorisation requests are the ones who vote in favour of authorising them.

* The Argentine state does not carry out its own independent studies for the approval of GMOs. And the ‘studies’ of the companies are ‘confidential’, secret.

* More than 1,000 scientists from CONICET [the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, an Argentine government agency] and 30 public universities have denounced the risks of GM wheat and flour.

* The case of the academic Raquel Chan [senior researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), director of the Instituto Agrobiotecnológico del Litoral, full professor at the National University of Litoral (UNL), and developer of the GM wheat] and the CONICET is emblematic of science addicted to the service of the economic sector and with negative consequences for the people (more pesticides, more deforestation, and more pressure on peasant and indigenous lands, among others).

* “It’s a national patent”, cheer Argentina's uncritical journalists. But neither Bioceres, nor Raquel Chan, nor the CONICET, nor the UNL have explained how, if at all, this patent would benefit Argentina’s public institutions.

* In Argentina, you can elect presidents and legislators but you are not allowed to choose to eat GM-free food. There is no labelling of GMO products in the country. Therefore, because of a decision taken by a dozen people (from science and politics), the whole population could be eating GMO baked goods without being able to choose.

Of partners, accomplices and peoples

The advance of GMOs in Argentina began with Carlos Menem [president of Argentina from 1989 to 1999] and has been state policy with all subsequent governments. In the case of wheat, Mauricio Macri did not move forward with the approval of HB4. It was the Peronist government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner who, via Julián Domínguez at the head of the Ministry of Agriculture, gave the final green light (May 2022).

Curiosities: Last February, the newspaper La Nación reported that the former president is a shareholder of Bioceres. The same company whose founders include Gustavo Grobocopatel (“the king of soy”) and whose shareholder is the multimillionaire Hugo Sigman, who was presented during the pandemic as a quasi benefactor and producer of vaccines and did big business with the Covid vaccine. At the same time, he is a promoter of extractivism (agribusiness and forestry).

Among peasant movements, family farmers, indigenous peoples, agroecological producers and socio-environmental organisations, there is no doubt: They do not need or want GM wheat. The campaign “Not with our bread!” is very clear: “GM wheat is not intended to solve the problem of hunger, but to favour the exports of the agro-industrial sector. We have already experienced this with GM soy: What has changed and how has it benefited the Argentine social fabric?”

Meanwhile, organisations in Latin America, Africa and Asia denounced the harmful effects of GM wheat. In a detailed 14-page document, social movements, peasants and indigenous peoples requested the intervention of United Nations (UN) special rapporteurs because of the risks to food, health and the environment posed by Bioceres’ GMO. They confirmed that there are no independent studies confirming its harmlessness, denounced the dangerous herbicide glufosinate ammonium, and also pointed out that it is less productive than conventional wheat.

“No to GM wheat. Global alliance seeks UN intervention against the cultivation of GM wheat HB4”, is the title of the communiqué from the international organisation GRAIN, which reports on the unusual – and irregular – way in which GM wheat has been approved in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay: on the basis of supposed studies by the company that markets it and with confidential documentation.

At the same time, there are numerous examples of agroecological wheat cultivation, without GMOs or agrotoxins, with very good yields and profitability.

The history of agriculture is more than 10,000 years old. The agribusiness model, a child of the so-called ‘green revolution’ (mid-20th century), is only seventy years old, a brief moment in the history of food production. Time enough to show that these [claims about GM wheat's benefits] are deceptions* that the peoples of Latin America no longer accept.


* The Spanish "espejos de colores" translates literally as "coloured mirrors". We're not sure how best to translate this into English (even after consulting a native Spanish speaker), but it seems to imply both deception and a superficial attractiveness that has no substance to it – an excellent description of many agricultural GMOs. We’ve simplified the translation to just “deceptions”.


Read this article on the GMWatch site and access linked sources:
https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20455

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