GMOs: LET'S BE CLEAR

Mr. President Rafael Correa Delgado:

In recent months, a public debate has been reopened about the relevance or not of releasing genetically modified crops and seeds in Ecuador. You have repeatedly expressed your disagreement with the constitutional mandate that declares Ecuador free of GMOs. In this regard, the National Commission of Consumers for Food Sovereignty; the Movement of Social and Solidarity Economy of Ecuador; the National Collective for Agroecology -which includes multiple national networks and federations and hundreds of organizations of farmers and peasants-, together with prestigious research centers, scientists and academics, present the following considerations. 

WE ARE OPEN TO DIALOGUE 

We are pleased that once again a national debate has been opened on this issue, as was done in the Montecristi Constituent Assembly (2008), and in the Legislative Commission of 2009 when the Organic Law of the Food Sovereignty Regime (LORSA) was approved. Hundreds of organizations and institutions, which represent thousands of Ecuadorian families, have presented solid scientific, economic, agronomic and political arguments in favor of sustainable agriculture and against the release of GMOs. As a result of broad, deep and serious public debates, our proposals were accepted and then ratified in the Referendum that gave Ecuador the most progressive and participatory Constitution in history. 

LET'S BE CLEAR: Myths and truths about GMOs. 

Based on scientific evidence and the most concrete reality, without passion or ideological discourse, we respond to some assertions made in the citizen link on Saturday, September 1: 

• Are GMOs a superior technology that will solve our problems? 

After more than 20 years of the large-scale dissemination and commercialization of these crops, we must ask ourselves: is there less hunger in the world? Have farmers emerged from poverty? Have crop yields increased because of GMOs? The answers are all negative, and the explanations are simple: neither hunger, nor rural poverty, nor productivity depend solely on the variety of seeds used. They depend on a more comprehensive understanding of agricultural systems; on recovering the natural fertility of soils; on maintaining and stimulating agrobiodiversity; on rebuilding market systems and making them more efficient and fair; on reorienting public policies and resources toward family farming, among other measures that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has pointed out and recommended to the governments of the world in his March 2011 report. 

• Genetically modified crops produce 4 times more than normal varieties 

False. The opposite occurs: yields are similar or up to 10% lower than common varieties. This is explained by the fact that transgenic crops are not designed to yield more (they do not produce more quintals per hectare) but rather they use the same conventional varieties and add a specific characteristic (for example, resistance to the herbicide Glyphosate). What does occur, as in the case of RR Soy in the USA or Argentina, is that production is intensified: crop areas are expanded with high mechanization and high inputs; the crop is harvested and sown without rotation or rest for the soil. This unsustainable and costly model has been maintained thanks to huge public resources that subsidize production, displacing and cheapening peasant labor, and in this artificial way, high productivity and prosperity are assumed. 

• GMOs are widespread and uncontrollable 

Equally false: more than 941 TP3T of the area cultivated with transgenic crops in the world (170 million Ha) is used for only 4 crops: soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton; and only with 2 characteristics: resistance to herbicides, and self-production of insecticides. The rest of the transgenic crops are grown on smaller and experimental areas. In the world only thirty countries have authorized and are extensively developing these crops (mainly the USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, India, Paraguay…) and – on the contrary – there are many more that reject this technology, among them several countries in Europe; and by taking this decision could they be considered backward? 

Thanks to studies carried out by civil society organizations, in field tests and using available technology, it has been shown that there are currently no transgenic crops in Ecuador, although there are suspicions about certain soybean cultivars, and a laboratory experiment by ESPOL on bananas (with authorization from the national government). But this shows that with technical instruments, adequate institutional organization and social participation, it is possible to control transgenic crops. 

• Does Ecuador consume GMOs? 

That’s right. And it’s not good news. We consume genetically modified by-products indirectly through animal feed that uses imported genetically modified soy or corn, as well as various industrialized foods that contain soy oil and lecithin, canola oil, fructose and other GMO corn by-products. It is worth remembering that our legislation requires “clear and explicit labeling” when a product contains genetically modified material, a rule that has not been complied with so far, and if these products pose risks to human health, ecosystems or food sovereignty, the Constitution mandates that they must be banned (Art. 15). 

• But, at the end of the day, are GMOs dangerous or not? 

We answer with the following questions: How many cigarettes does it take to get cancer? How many deaths do we want to see before GMOs are finally banned? Fifteen years ago it was said that there was no conclusive evidence about the dangers of GMOs, despite the warnings of scientists with some ethics and independence. Now we cannot be blind to reality; here is a very brief example of what is sadly happening: 

1. Damage to human health: 

– Starlink Corn Case: First GMO Banned for Human Consumption Weren’t they supposed to be harmless? And why is their consumption banned? Precisely because it was the cause of thousands of cases of allergies and health problems in US citizens. Huge quantities had to be removed from supermarket shelves in a public and televised scandal that occurred in 2002. Despite this, the Starlink variety is still grown for industrial uses, but cases of genetic contamination and illegal sale in other countries are common. 

– Damage to internal organs: Several studies on mammals have shown that the continuous consumption of transgenic soy caused damage and malformations in internal organs (liver, pancreas), low fertility, poor growth of offspring, among other problems. The most widely disseminated study is by the renowned Hungarian researcher Arpad Pusztai. 

– All GMOs contain antibiotic resistance genes, which is a cause for concern for the medical community. The last European crisis (2011) of the so-called “Spanish cucumbers”, caused by a strange strain of the E. Coli bacteria resistant to 7 different antibiotics, infected more than 3 thousand people and caused more than 40 deaths. 

– in Germany and whose causes of genetic mutation have not been publicly clarified, are most likely related to transgenesis, since E. Coli is widely used in laboratories that use this technology and this bacteria is present in the digestive tract of cattle in Europe that have been fed with transgenic soy for more than 10 years. 

– In general, technology entails enormous uncertainties since genes do not operate mechanically, transgenesis is neither predictable nor stable, as its promoters claim. 

By the way, no one has claimed that the consumption of GMOs produces “mutant conversions” like the ones you mentioned in the citizen link; an exaggerated comment that confuses public opinion and the population. 

2. Agronomic and environmental damage: 

– GMOs increase the use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Evidence? Thanks to transgenic soy, Brazil is now the world’s leading consumer of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Argentina increased its use of glyphosate in 200% by expanding the cultivation of RR Soy (transgenic crop designed to tolerate wide applications of the herbicide Glyphosate) over the last 10 years. 

– GMOs have caused the emergence of “superweeds” precisely because they are acquiring resistance to the herbicide Glyphosate for which GMOs are designed and adapted. 

– In Colombia, cotton farmers were affected by the failure of the BT transgenic variety, which was supposed to be resistant to insect pests (BT transgenes cause the plant to produce an insecticidal substance). The pests did not disappear, but conventional seed varieties did and farmers were forced to rely on a more expensive and inefficient seed, even though they no longer want it; in addition, many consumers reject insecticidal corn in their diet. A few weeks ago, the government of Burkina Faso decided to abandon Bt transgenic cotton, which accounts for 60% of the country’s exports and is produced by small farmers. The introduction of transgenic cotton increased the cost of seeds from 550 francs to 27,000 francs! 

• Transgenic crops are resistant to frost and drought 

If this were the case, where are these seeds? Of course it is desirable to have crops resistant to frost, drought, pests, and diseases, but here again the same paradigmatic error: GMOs cannot and will not be able to confront these phenomena. This will only be possible if we change our understanding and make a more intelligent design of agricultural systems, as proposed by Agroecology. Successful adaptation to extreme climates and circumstances depends on the proper management of soils, irrigation, climatic zones, diversified and associated crops, living barriers, terraces, and of course also adapted varieties, as did peasant peoples with hundreds of types of potatoes, corn, quinoa, amaranth… A dialogue of knowledge between Western science and ancestral knowledge is the way to revitalize and modernize agriculture and resolve the crisis. 

• What about medicines made with GMOs? 

The confined use of microorganisms for medical purposes, such as the production of insulin from transgenic bacteria, is a procedure that includes strict biosecurity measures and is carried out in sterile and hermetically sealed laboratory areas, but there are still risks. But these procedures are far from the massive cultivation in the open air of millions of hectares of transgenic crops that interact with the ecosystem, which become our food and part of our own organism with effects that are still uncertain. In addition, drugs are not transgenic organisms in themselves, they are byproducts (such as insulin) that do not contain transgenes and are consumed only occasionally, unlike transgenic foods (such as soy or corn), which we consume directly, almost daily and which contain transgenes, which most often include genetic material from infectious viruses and bacteria. Any scientist, with a bit of ethics, would immediately assume that this involves risks. 

Furthermore, Mr. President, let us remember that the cause of 70% of public health problems in the world, and particularly diabetes (whose patients are administered insulin) are the effects of a poor diet that could well be prevented with adequate promotion of a healthy diet, which in turn can be provided with agricultural products of better quality and diversity, precisely what our Agrobiodiversity and the Agroecological production model offer. 

President Correa, if we give up our status as a GMO-free territory, we will undoubtedly run very high and unnecessary risks: 

1. Our agrobiodiversity is at risk: contrary to what the promoters of GMOs claimed in the 1990s, GMO crops can genetically contaminate normal varieties, as is currently happening in Mexico, the centre of origin of corn, which unfortunately has found contamination with transgenes from bt corn in its fields of native varieties. Other studies have already found transgenes in bacteria from the human and animal digestive tract, as well as in marine algae, meaning that they can effectively be transferred in the food chain, despite the fact that it was claimed that this was impossible. Why insist: Ecuador, the country of megadiversity, does not need GMOs. 

2. International rejection of our products: American and European consumers, our main markets, are increasingly rejecting genetically modified foods, which significantly affects the export of primary products from our countries. This is already happening with honey from Mexico and Central America that is exported to Europe and is being rejected after it has been found to contain BT corn pollen. 

3. We have received letters from consumer movements such as Slow Food International (the largest and most influential in the world), who have alerted their members about ESPOL's GM banana experiment and are waiting for Ecuador to maintain its status as a country free of this technology. This alert has even reached the banana sector itself, and many of its associations have already expressed their concern in this regard. 

Being a GMO-free country puts us in a highly competitive position, even more so with the substantial growth in global demand for clean and organic products (a business worth 40 billion USD/year at a growth rate of 91%3T annually). This idea is reinforced by the internationally avant-garde image that Ecuador projects as an ecological country (Yasuní Project, rights of nature, GMO-free). 

Wikileaks and GMOs in Ecuador 

Consider also the assertions in the WikiLeaks cables released by our political asylum seeker Julian Assange, regarding GMOs in Ecuador, which explicitly state the interest of the US and transnational industries in achieving a change in the Ecuadorian Constitution and legislation to favor their interests. The cables state the following: 

1. The US State Department has funded a “tour” for journalists from private media outlets to train them to communicate positively on the issue of GMOs and biotechnology. The tour cost 25,000 USD. “The Office is requesting funding to support the travel of five Ecuadorian journalists to the United States to participate in a one-week biotechnology (GMO) tour. The purpose of the biotechnology tour for journalists is to educate opinion makers about biotechnology… in line with the United States Government’s position on biotechnology.” 

“Since Ecuador is a commercial market for these products (in 2008, the United States exported more than $33 million worth of soy flour and more than $144 million worth of coarse grains to Ecuador), it is in the interest of the United States Government to obtain public support for biotechnology (GM). Respected Ecuadorian media coverage in favor of GM crops will help change public opinion…. Press coverage in favor of biotechnology will set the stage for positive opinion and help prevent public protests if the President or the National Assembly allows the approval and implementation of biotechnology.” 

The cable also adds: “The presidential exception contemplated in the Constitution (art. 401) was added only as a result of lobbying by Ecuador’s influential agribusinesses….. unfortunately, it is expected that the National Assembly will approve legislation that affects biotechnology, the use and commercialization of transgenic seeds and issues regarding consumer protection with respect to transgenic crops.” 

WE HAVE ANSWERS, WE PROPOSE ALTERNATIVES 

We believe in the ethics of science and in the development of knowledge. We propose a major national plan for research and development of new agroecological and sustainable technologies, and to work on the recognition and promotion of our incredible agrobiodiversity. In addition, we can develop sustainable biotechnology in its many branches: agricultural microbiology, bioremediation, bioreactors, biofiltration and hundreds of possibilities that do not represent risks and are in no way prohibited by our law. But introducing GMOs would perpetuate the current agrarian model that is collapsing. If there is a genuine interest in promoting its development, let us first think about the structural problems that our peasant families face and that have not yet been resolved: water, land, fair trade and many more. 

We have the experience and talent to recover production and promote a true agrarian revolution, facing and resolving rural poverty, protecting our crops from the abundant pests and diseases that proliferate, we know and can recover the fertility of our soils and therefore their productivity. We hope that this dialogue that begins today will allow us to show the evidence of our assertion. We invite you to learn about the hundreds of experiences of peasant families who today successfully face the problems of agriculture in Ecuador, and we expect an innovative response from the National Government to promote them. Likewise, Ecuadorian consumer families are growing in awareness about the agrarian and food crisis. We do not want more poison in our food! And together, producers and consumers, countryside and city united, we categorically affirm: we do not need GMOs! 

Finally, we want to share and spread this vision to all of Ecuador: “healthy, delicious food from our own land, for our people and to distribute to all peoples and nations.” “To be recognized as the country where the healthiest and most delicious food in the world is grown: free of pesticides, agrotoxins and free of GMOs.” That is the agrarian Ecuador we want! Is it possible? Of course it is! 

NATIONAL AGROECOLOGICAL COLLECTIVE 

ECUADORIAN SOCIAL AND SOLIDARITY ECONOMY MOVEMENT – MESSE 

NATIONAL COMMISSION OF CONSUMERS FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY 

ECUADORIAN FEDERATION OF INDIGENOUS AND BLACK PEASANT ORGANIZATIONS OF ECUADOR – FENOCIN