After months of break, the Davao organic market is back again. This is a successful collaboration of different NGO’s pushing the organic agriculture law in the Philippines. One of the reasons is that there is no sincere support from the government and even from the majority of the population itself. This effort is spearheaded by the network called ‘Go Organic Mindanao!’, a broad network of organizations who are believers, supporters and practitioners of agro-ecological farming and organic agriculture, and which our collective is also involved. Its members are present in 14 provinces and cities in 6 regions in Mindanao. This movement also supports other campaigns such as the indigenous people’s rights, banning of aerial spraying and pesticides in banana and pineapple plantations, resistance against GMO and Monsanto, stopping of coal, stopping of water privatization, abolishing pork barrel, and even the resistance against G8 and JPEPA (Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement) in 2008.
For the past years, it is very active in opposing Bt Eggplant and Golden Rice (GR) here in Mindanao. Here in Davao for example, this network helped destroyed and uprooted the Bt eggplant field-test site in UP Mindanao Campus (University of the Philippines), Mintal. These groups and the adjacent villages in this state university protested and demanded the immediate uprooting of the GMO crops in field trials that’s why the former mayor of Davao, Sara Duterte, supported the call. However, even though the mayor helped this time, she was helping because the trial was said to be “not in a right procedure” and “did not hold public consultations”, and that’s why she allowed the university people who are behind this GMO project to start all over again. But due to the fact that it would expose the local varieties to contamination and genetic degeneration, and would cause serious health and environmental problems, the people decided to shut it down. The officer involved in the project at that time was Dr. Eufemio Rasco of UP and he still defended and further pushed the GMO trial.
Meanwhile outside Mindanao, Last August 2013 around 400 people including many farmers attacked another GM rice testing in the government-owned field in Pili, Camarines Sur. Some of the farmers also stated that GM crops are very dangerous not only to humans but also to the soil and other crops and organisms that is why they need to stop the secretly run GMO trial. Jaime Tadeo of the National Rice Farmers Council said, “G R has long been rejected by Filipinos and in other parts of the world. Its creators are using this to improve their image and we know they are waging a major public relations campaign to win the hearts of Filipinos and get this GMO rice in our food on the table”.
Research and development of Golden Rice started in 1992 with the prototype released eight years later by Syngenta, the third largest seed company and biggest agro-chemical company in the world, according to Greenpeace. The first generation Golden Rice had low concentrations of beta carotene, the precursor of Vitamin A, and would have required people to consume 12 times their normal rice intake of rice to obtain the recommended dietary allowance of Vitamin A, based on a Greenpeace study in 2001.
To quote the GM Watch group in their article… “Golden Rice is genetically engineered said to contain increased levels of beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A (also known as provitamin A). The rice is claimed to help cure blindness and other illnesses caused by vitamin A deficiency in the Third World. It is also claimed that opposition to GR by environmentalists and anti-GMO activists has caused millions to die or go blind in the developing world. These claims are factually incorrect and unscientific. In reality, we don’t need GM rice. GR is an expensive and unproven ‘solution’ to a problem for which better solutions exist. It has swallowed millions in development money and yet is still not ready.” These so called benefits can also be found in green leafy vegetables and other natural, organic food so why does the government waste money and time? And why they are obviously standing on the side of these mammoth corporations? Although OM does not agree with some of the NGO’s politics and campaigns, we support this effort/network because we think that, if supported by many, this is one of the very strong and effective actions against the capitalist agriculture and food industry and other institutions that profit from our food and health. The Golden Rice field test trials are being conducted by the Philippine Rice Research Institute in partnership with the Department of Agriculture.
It is so obvious that the Philippine government rampantly approves and supports GMO’s. While pro-GMO lobby groups and policy makers claim that GMO approvals will alleviate hunger, this did not become the result of Philippines’ “relentless” approval of GMO applications. While Golden Rice is still being tested, a total of 44 GMOs have been approved by the government: 40 for direct use as food, animal feed and food processing and 4 for planting as crops. Most of these are genetically-altered corn, soybean, potato, canola, cotton, sugarbeet and alfalfa. They have been genetically-engineered to resist pests and herbicides, delay ripening or enhance their nutritional value. All of these approved GMOs are products of big multinational agro-chemical companies like Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Pioneer which own patents to these crops. This is how "friendly" the Philippines is to GMOs despite more than 60 countries in the world, including Japan, Australia, and countries in the European Union already putting restrictions and bans on GMOs. First, these companies use promotions and discounts. They give farmers free trial seeds for planting. They even raffle them off. Most of the farmers especially the small landholders have tried planting GM corn but after one planting season, they quit. But they are forced to plant it again because the credit facilities they borrow from will only grant them loans if they plant GM corn. These facilities are partly funded by GM companies like Monsanto.
According to Greenpeace, more than 50% of food in an average grocery in the Philippines are GMOs or contain GMOs. If it's highly processed, it will probably contain canola, extenders like corn and soya, and these are imported from the US where GMOs are one of their largest industries. If alarming health risks like these have not yet manifested, the environmental impact of planting GM crops already have. A Cornell study reported that toxic pollen from Bt corn has led to the deaths of monarch butterflies. Though Bt corn produces its own insecticide to kill crop-damaging pests, it also kills "nontarget" organisms like honeybees and ladybugs, which are essential to agricultural ecosystems as pollinators or predators of pests. Terje Traavik, director of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, announced a study claiming that villagers who lived next to a plantation of biotech maize in the southern Philippines suffered fevers and respiratory, intestinal and skin ailments in late 2003. By seeking to control the food system from the crop’s gene—not seed—up to the table, GMO corporations are forcing Filipino farmers into a corner by promoting dependence on industrial chemical inputs such as harmful pesticides and herbicides. The country’s dependence on supplies from GMO corporations will tie farmers into a never-ending circle of debt and less choices for what seeds or crops to plant. Despite documented cases on questions of their safety and rejection by other countries, no GMO application in the Philippines has ever been disapproved.
In the US, many activists and communities are still converging together to take actions against the biotech industry and genetic modification and to protect the native or the heirloom seeds. Thus, seed libraries were established in many parts and although this seem like a new idea, it is inspired by traditional seed banking method. This movement inspired many activists that are practicing organic gardening and other related projects such as CSA’s (community supported agriculture). Some examples are Hudson Valley Seed Library in upstate New York, the Seed Library of Los Angeles, the Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library in California's East Bay, and the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, or BASIL founded by Sascha Dubrul, co-founder of ICARUS mental health support group. And with this, networks were also formed and other members sell native seeds for sustainability and promotional/campaign purposes. There was also an effort to form a national association of seed libraries, a unifying body to advance the growing movement. To quote Stephen C. Thomas of Native Seeds/SEARCH, a seed conservation nonprofit….
“Multinational agribusiness corporations like Monsanto and DuPont realized early on that control over the seeds was the key to global domination of food supplies. Over the past two decades these industrial giants have aggressively swallowed up dozens of smaller seed companies in a cutthroat race for market supremacy. According to the latest figures from the ETC Group, a sustainable agriculture think tank, Monsanto sits at the top of the pile raking in 27 percent of total seed sales worldwide. A recent report in the LA Times revealed that Monsanto has set its sights on a new target market: the garden vegetable seed industry. Employing intensive breeding technologies, Monsanto aims to concoct newfangled veggies with bizarre traits they imagine consumers will eagerly devour. Shoppers will be able to load up on heads of cholesterol-lowering broccoli, quicker-ripening melons, and onions that cause less eye-watering when sliced. Steve Peters, former head of production at Seeds of Change, summed this disturbing news up best: "Monsanto wants to take the tears out of onions. What's wrong with tears?”
Here in Mindanao, we need more effort to popularize not only the benefits of organic agriculture but also the still underlying threat of genetic modification in our food, animals, and agriculture. We also need to come up more ways to expose the impact of chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to our health and we need to fight these biotech industries in a sincere and forceful manner. If the people don’t know the history and the real motives of these corporations, the people will not effectively eliminate the “cancer” in our society; especially the ones that hide behind our food supply like Monsanto, Syngenta and other giant agro-chemical industries. After so many years, it is clear that our government is not concern and in fact tolerant to the exploitation of these profiteering death-machines that’s why we need to strengthen our solidarity from the grassroots and not in the bureaucratic-hierarchical level. We need more activists to work on this issue of food and agriculture, people that will take the campaign personally so that it will be more effective to many. We need more community gardens that consciously take care of its seeds and soil against the threat of GMO. We need more conscious gardeners that are willing to defend our freedom to grow food organically and eager to inspire, influence and help others grow their own food.
In my personal observation, I don’t see so much people that are passionately talking about GMO or fighting against these biotech industries. I’ve met few people in this network and they play a big role in this struggle, but I think we need to organize more communities and “consumers” to strongly and effectively express resistance to this type of ecological and biological terrorism perpetuated by big transnational biotech corporations and sanctioned by capitalist government and institutions. In this very meaningful effort by local organizations which happens every Friday of the week, 3-5pm at Rizal Park, we are always ready to support through its Food Freedom project. By spreading information about GMO, biotech, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Aspartame, Fluoride and other serious health issues caused by these huge chemical corporations, and also by networking to raise more awareness and opposition, OM stands in solidarity with these farmers and organizations.
Credits to: DJ Yap, Jeff Tupas, Pia Ranada, Daniel Ocampo, Stephen C. Thomas
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