Anti-GMO Activists: Venezuela is Not Your Trophy

On January 21st, the Organic Consumer Association posted this on Twitter:
 
Having grown up in Venezuela, it set off a murderous rage in my soul, and I'm going to take some time to outline how that one tweet represents the epitome of the anti-GMO lobby's head-up-their-ass-ishness.

The Organic Consumer Association (OCA) is an advocacy group that believes in the dangers of vaccines (see here and here) and the benefits of homeopathy, among other things. But their celebration of GMO bans across the world, with no knowledge whatsoever of the country's problems embodies their privileged ignorance. After all, why would you tout the evils of vaccines if you haven't known someone who died of measles? Why would you celebrate the banning of GMOs in a country if you haven't stood in line to buy milk?

That's not an exaggeration. As some of you may know, I was raised in Venezuela but left to pursue my education after graduating from high school. With my parents and siblings still living in the country, I visited nearly every year, but my visits became less and less frequent. As of today, no one in my family lives there. While my parents lived in Venezuela, it was traditional that during their visits to me in Canada, I'd take them to the grocery store. Like kids in Disneyland, they'd stand in the middle of the grocery store staring at the abundance of it all, and then top the grocery cart with all the things they couldn't find. Some of it was due to cultural differences (for example, peanut butter isn't commonly eaten in Venezuela). But sometimes, it was the most basic of items. During a trip to the US, my sister once shared pictures that she took of the milk aisle in a grocery store during a particularly harsh milk shortage.

Venezuela's food shortages are due to many economic and social factors: restrictive regulations on currency, an inflation rate set to surpass 700%, a political climate that has made private investments challenging, and agrarian reform that has transferred lands into the hands of owners with little to no experience, among many others.

Empty Aisles at a Venezuelan Supermarket
From Wikimedia

As such, a ban on GMOs must necessarily be viewed and reported through the lens of how it will impact Venezuela's food supply. The ban is very far reaching: not only does it ban growing GMOs, but also their import, as well as research on transgenic crops. At a time when Venezuela relies heavily on imported food, particularly from Argentina and Brazil who are two of the world's leaders in GM-crop growth, such a ban might have very severe implications.

The OCA wasn't alone in its celebration of this "progressive" seed law. Here are a few other organizations that celebrated the ban:

The Hollywood Food Guild rejoiced:

Go Venezuela! Venezuela's neighbor Brazil is the biggest #gmo grower after the US. #ag #pesticides #monsanto https://t.co/dmf6MEVtCO

— Hollywood Food Guild (@HollywoodFood) December 16, 2015

GMWatch was in a celebratory mood:

The approval of the #GMO seed ban in Venezuela makes for a joyous end of year. Celebratory tweets coming up! Let's work for this everywhere.

— GMWatch (@GMWatch) December 25, 2015

Hundreds of people tweeted in celebration of the ban, hoping that their own country would soon follow suit. There were several articles that circulated many times: one article that was co-written by a Venezuelan activist which I can only describe as government propaganda, and a second that was published in EcoWatch. But every piece that I read left me with even more questions.

• The article claimed that the new seed law banned "transgenic (GMO) seed while protecting local seed from privatization". Why was there no mention of an uncommercialized locally developed, ring-spot resistant variety of GM papaya, particularly when it is one of the country's more popular fruits? Since it was developed by the public sector, isn't this an excellent example of endogenous agronomy that could be resistant to privatization?
• Many articles claimed that the law was a product of "direct participatory democracy", and the summary from the OCA stated that the law "was hammered out through a deliberative partnership between members of the country’s National Assembly and a broad-based grassroots coalition of eco-socialist, peasant, and agroecological oriented organizations and institutions". Why weren't agronomists part of that equation? Why was there no mention of the fact that scientists were not consulted and in fact, Venezuela's Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences issued a statement asking the National Assembly to reconsider the law?
• Venezuela has had a moratorium on growing GMOs for several years. The OCA mentions this by stating that Venezuela has virtually had a ban on GMOs since 2004, and that this is aligned with the country's goal of "endogenous development". But none of the articles outlined how this ban has helped the country and its economy. Is 10 years not enough time to see an impact? How did the ban help endogenous agronomy? Were any new crops developed nationally in the decade since the ban? If not, how will a ban on GMO research help the nation's goals?
• In 2013, a local research paper published a study demonstrating that a patented corn variety was being grown by the government. If Venezuela had a ban on GMOs since 2004, why were government farms growing GMOs? Why didn't any of the articles report this? Is this the type of "progressive" government-led food transparency that GMWatch is celebrating and would like other nations to adopt?
• The law does not outline if processed foods derived from GMOs can be imported. Does this mean that the country will now rely more heavily on importing finished goods instead of imported crops that can be developed into goods within the nation?
• Why didn't any of the pieces say anything on what this law represents in terms of Venezuela's economy and food shortages? Could it possibly be that the Hollywood Food Guild failed to read any of the 20,000 hits that I pulled up when I typed in "Venezuela Food shortages" into Google News?
• The article that the OCA bases it's piece on states that "national seed legislation is increasingly being co-opted by corporate agribusiness interests", and that this law will put a stop to that. Is the OCA under the impression that corporate agribusinesses only produce GMO seeds? Is EcoWatch unaware of the fact that there are dozens of transgenic crops being developed by public sector and non-profit groups around the world?

I find it so illogical that GMWatch would seek to mimic economic policies from a country whose new minister of economics calls inflation a "bourgeois invention". I find it to be the epitome of stupidity, to hold one of the 10 most corrupt countries in the world as a standard of transparency. I find it ridiculous to hail a law as "progressive" from a nation with one of the vastest natural resources in the world that is about to default on its loans.

But above all else, what set off my rage was the fact that some ass-hat at EcoWatch probably typed up their puff-piece when they had never stood in line to buy any basic food item in their life. In the years leading up to my parents leaving Venezuela, my mom's life schedule was built and defined around the amount of time that she'd have to stand in line at stores to buy goods. When she or one of her friends found a basic supply such as corn flour that had been lacking, they'd alert one another by text message. Has anyone at the OCA had to do that? Has anyone at the Hollywood Food Guild had to buy rice on the black market? Or does their world end when Starbucks doesn't have organic soy milk?

Don't get me wrong: I do not believe in North American exceptionalism. I do not believe that a country is inherently "better" than others. I believe that each nation has strengths and weaknesses, and that we can all learn from one another. So, I invite the tweeters who are celebrating Venezuela's seed law to go visit Venezuela. It is a beautiful nation with rich culture, amazing natural beauty, and fantastic people. Visitors will have a wonderful time, I have no doubt. But Venezuela has its problems. To ignore these and to hail an ill-defined law that can only worsen them is misleading at best. To call Venezuela's law as "progressive", when its President has stated that the solution to the food shortage is to "grow your own" is sheer ignorance. Are people supposed to then grind their own corn flour, too?  

The fact that we, living in North America, have options to buy organic, conventional, non-GMO, gluten-free, or peanut-free is not something that should be taken lightly. Our farmers have the right to grow whatever they'd like, using whatever methods and standards they'd like, as approved by laws and regulations, and that's a freedom and right that should be celebrated. Yet other nations have agricultural sectors that are lagging decades behind, where producing enough food is a serious challenge. The fact that tools and technologies that may help address such challenges are being barred due to philosophical or political ideologies and not science based policies makes progress all the more challenging and defies the notion of an informed democracy. But that's something that all these anti-GMO groups seem to forget in their priviledged positions: the fact that they feel that their developed-nation standards should be applied globally reeks of elitism.

And let me make a suggestion to those tweeters who accept the invitation to visit Venezuela: print out many copies of the articles you shared when you visit. It will come in handy due to the toilet paper shortage.

The Life and Times of BioChica as Told Through GMO Legislation Around the World

As you may know, I'm not American. The spouse and Mr Chubby-Cheeks were born in the US, whereas I was born in Canada. But that's not the whole story: my parents are Iranian who fled the Islamic revolution in 1979 due to their religion, I was born in Canada, raised in Venezuela (which is why I've written about dengue), and I actually met the spouse while working for a year in Israel. I don't know where we'll end up: probably wherever I get decent job offers. Until today, my blog has been very US-centric, but this post will have a more international angle.

This article is about different nations' laws and regulations surrounding GMOs. A common argument that you may read about the dangers of GMOs is how different countries around the world have banned them or have legislation around them. Here's an example from the Non-GMO Project's website:

"Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe. In more than 60 countries around the world, including Australia, Japan, and all of the countries in the European Union, there are significant restrictions or outright bans on the production and sale of GMOs."

You can see how this can lead to a conspiracy theory with the following narrative: GMOs aren't properly tested in the United States. In Europe, scientists have discovered that GMOs can be harmful and they've been banned. But in the US, the FDA is in bed with Monsanto, which is why we're eating these toxic poisons and we aren't being told the truth.

To quote Professor Higgins, it's "so deliciously low, so horribly dirty!" Hence the appeal of this particular conspiracy theory. 

In terms of "bans", there's actually only one country in the world that has an outright ban: Kenya. Recently, there have been calls to lift the ban due to farming losses. 

All other countries have laws and regulations surrounding biotech crops. That includes the United States. There's a reason why you can't just make a transgenic crop and have it sold in stores the following season. So, for the rest of this article, I'm going to look at laws surrounding GMOs in 4 different countries: Canada, Israel, Venezuela and Iran. 

It's the "The Life and Times of BioChica as told Through GMO Legislation Around the World". 

GMO Legislation in Venezuela, Iran, Israel, and Canada

Venezuela: Venezuela's story about GMOs is fascinating (in my biased opinion). To understand Venezuela's stance on GMOs, a bit of a background is needed: Hugo Chavez was elected as Venezuela's president in 1999 and remained in power till his death in 2013. He led a "socialist revolution" that took a very hard anti-American, "anti-imperialist" stance (whatever that means...). As such, much of the policies in the country reflect this attitude. In 2002, Chavez passed a "seed law" which included the establishment of an institute that would oversee the testing, development and research of transgenics. However, in 2004 Chavez made the sudden decision of cancelling a contract with Monsanto, which was about to plant 500,000 acres of GM corn. There was no legal ban, yet no one has planted transgenic crops in Venezuela ever since the incident, which was paired with Chavez's public statement: "the people of the United States, of Latin America and the world, should follow the example of Venezuela and be free of transgenics.”

However, Venezuela relies very heavily on imports and food shortages have become increasingly common the last decade and have hit an all-time high in the last 1-2 years. Two of Venezuela's biggest import partners are Argentina and Brazil, who also happen to be global leaders in the number of acres dedicated to transgenic crops. Despite the fact that Venezuela needs a dramatic increase in food production to meet the demands of its growing population, it plans to pass a law that will straight-out ban growing GMOs.

Here's where it gets interesting. This story comes from Dr Felix Moronta (@morontafelix) who generously gave me permission to translate the story from his website. A recent study published in a regional journal examined 12 Venezuelan corn growers in 2011: 10 were government owned and 2 were privately owned, and these represented 70% of the corn growers in the country. Using tests that searched for the transgenic protein as well as for transgenic DNA, the authors were able to determine that a government owned company was actually growing transgenic Bt-corn (for more info on Bt-corn and transgenic proteins, please see previous post). The authors were also able to determine that the crop being grown carried a patented trait (transgenic event TC1507). The journal article, as well it's summary by Dr Moronta, ask the government to 'fess up and to clarify their stance. As Dr Moronta eloquently outlines, the government is banning growing and doing research on GMOs, yet they import tons of GM grains and goods, AND they're growing them on the DL. Makes no sense...

I can only conclude that Venezuela's position has NOTHING to do with the safety of transgenics. If it was legitimately about safety, then there would be laws surrounding their import. In reading articles and news stories, the sense that I get is that Venezuela's ban on transgenics seems to be due to 1) sticking it to "imperialist" big-Ag. 2) striving for food sovereignty and 3) removing GM seeds from the equation so that small farmers can be successful in the socialist revolution. However, there's no evidence that the moratorium on growing GMOs has contributed to any of these goals given the devastating food shortages.

Iran: Unfortunately, I can only read Farsi up to a 1st or 2nd grade level at best, so most of this information came through translated material. Only one transgenic crop has been approved for cultivation in Iran: rice. It makes perfect sense: rice is eaten every day in an Iranian household. According to my dad, it's not real food unless it has rice. A form of Bt-rice was approved in 2004, but when President Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, his administration "decided against the release of GM crops". It's important to note that Iran was the first nation to commercialize transgenic rice and this article outlines how Iran had hoped to quickly follow this success with additional crops. There was no ban or legislation against GMOs. Apparently, the decision to drop the commercialization of GMOs was due to the lack of a "biosafety law in the country, and 2) lack of harmonization among different stakeholders (Ministry of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Organization etc.)". However, the Iranian government now feels that a decent biosafety law is now established, and the law's text states that the government should facilitate the release, research, commercialization, etc of GMOs.

Makes sense:  I don't think that international companies based out of the US would be allowed to trade with Iran due to the current sanctions that are in place, so Iran's probably trying to figure out a way to boost food production. Mmmmmmmm... Tahchin made with GM rice... Drool...

Israel: Before I start this section, I've got to tell you something about Israel. It's a desert. It's hot. It can be really dusty. But despite all this, the local fruits and veggies are spectacular (here's Wikipedia's article on agriculture in Israel). There are no GMOs commercialized in Israel, even though the country is a hotbed for research into GMOs. This comes as no surprise considering the interest that the nation has in drought-resistant crops. Apparently, this is due to the fact that a very large portion of Israel's agricultural exports head to the EU, where they are slow to approve transgenic crops for import and have labelling laws as well. As such, growing GMOs might have financial repercussions if the EU were to decide to be more wary of Israeli produce.

I couldn't find the actual text of any laws. If anyone out there knows where I could find them, please let me know.

Canada: This database lists a slew of GMOs that have been approved for cultivation in Canada. Health Canada's website has a great description of the regulatory process to gain approval for cultivation and/or sale of a new crop. When someone is interested in submitting a new crop, they're encouraged to consult with Health Canada beforehand to determine if there are any potential red flags. Then they submit the paperwork and undergo a scientific assessment. Health Canada can request additional information, will summarize it's findings, prepares a ruling, and then posts the information on the Health Canada website. It seems very similar to the process in the US under the FDA.


What struck me when I was doing research for this article, is how little the science of GMOs were mentioned. I didn't find any evidence to support the Non-GMO projects' statement that "most developed countries do not consider GMOs to be safe", albeit I only looked into 4 countries for this article. However, these 4 countries are extremely diverse in terms of economic status and development, as well as their relationship with the US. Despite these differences, I think that the common thread in this article seems to be the fact that laws for and against GMOs are economic or political in nature, and have little to do with safety. If it were genuinely about safety, then they'd ban the import of GMOs and join the ranks of Kenya.

Happy New Year y'all! Or, Feliz Año!