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00:00:04We used to be a nation of farmers, but now it's less than 2% of the population in the
00:00:09United States, and so a lot of us don't know what it takes to grow food.
00:00:26Over 12,000 years ago, people began planting and saving seed. Agriculture flowered, and
00:00:34civilizations were born. In China, thousands of varieties of rice were grown. Over 5,000
00:00:45kinds of potatoes were cultivated worldwide. In the U.S. alone, more than 7,000 varieties
00:00:53of apples were grown in the 19th century. In the 20th century, the face of farming underwent
00:01:01a radical change. The manufacture of nitrogen-based bombs during World War I led to the development
00:01:08of nitrogen-based chemical fertilizers. Nerve gas, developed during World War II, was slightly
00:01:25modified to make insecticides. DDT was the hero of its generation. New technologies promised
00:01:55higher yields, increased food production, cheaper prices, and greater availability.
00:02:06By the mid-20th century, these technologies, along with new developments in plant breeding,
00:02:12led to the Green Revolution.
00:02:16I think the people who first imagined the Green Revolution had good hearts. Lots of people
00:02:22are starving around the planet. That's long been the case in human civilization. Their thinking
00:02:26was if we could just systematize agriculture, like we did industry in the 1800s, and bring
00:02:32it worldwide, bring one system that works, we can solve the problems that people have long
00:02:37had with agriculture. The next several decades saw a remarkable increase in production. Year
00:02:45after year, huge fields were planted with only one variety of crop. These monocultures created
00:02:53an ecological vacuum that insects and disease could exploit. This uniformity has led to some
00:03:00of the greatest agricultural catastrophes of mankind. In the mid-1800s, very few varieties of
00:03:07potatoes were cultivated in Ireland. When they became diseased, one million people died.
00:03:19When the same potato blight attacked Peru, they suffered fewer consequences.
00:03:29Today, only four varieties of potatoes are widely grown.
00:03:36Ninety-seven percent of the varieties of vegetables grown at the beginning of the 20th century
00:03:41are now extinct. Genetic uniformity leads to an increased vulnerability to insects and disease.
00:03:52Farmers found themselves trapped on a pesticide treadmill. The more they sprayed, the more they had to spray.
00:03:59The increased use of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides increased costs, polluted water, and created health risks.
00:04:10Then in the 1970s, Monsanto introduced Roundup. Because of its ability to kill most weeds, it became one of the
00:04:18most popular herbicides in history.
00:04:22In the mid-1990s, building on technologies that used gene splicing, the green revolution turned into the gene revolution.
00:04:37Capitalizing on the new technology, Monsanto genetically modified its seeds to be Roundup ready.
00:04:47Normally, Roundup kills anything green. But if the plant is Roundup ready, when it is sprayed, it doesn't die.
00:04:58Now the company that sells you the herbicide also sells you the seed.
00:05:04A generation ago, farmers would seed a crop and use a herbicide when necessary, but often they wouldn't need to
00:05:11use a herbicide.
00:05:12And today, you have a crop that, right when it goes in the ground, is designed to be sprayed.
00:05:19With Monsanto's Bt corn, the corn itself is registered as an insecticide.
00:05:25This is because every cell has been engineered to manufacture Bt, a natural bacterial toxin.
00:05:32If a corn borer eats any part of the plant, it will die.
00:05:39And now that we have genetic engineering, we're not just, you know, putting chemicals in this food.
00:05:44We're actually industrializing the food at the genetic cellular level.
00:05:56One of the most controversial aspects of the gene revolution is the patenting of seeds.
00:06:02There was a very good reason why, for, you know, virtually 200 years, the Patent Office and Congress did not
00:06:09allow for the patenting of life.
00:06:13The right to patent is guaranteed by Article I in the Constitution.
00:06:18Food crops were deliberately excluded from patenting on moral grounds.
00:06:25Starting in the 1930s, plant breeders were given the right to patent their work.
00:06:30But the patent protection did not extend to the subsequent generations of seeds.
00:06:37You know, clearly when you patent a tennis racket, let's say, with a new sweet spot, you can describe that
00:06:41very accurately to the Patent Office.
00:06:43But how in the world can you describe a whole plant, much less generations down, when that's changed and mutated?
00:06:49But in 1978, Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty took the first living organism to the Patent Office.
00:06:56Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty was an engineer for General Electric, and he created an oil-eating microbe and tried to get
00:07:02it patented.
00:07:03And the U.S. Patent Office said, no way, we do not allow you to patent parts of nature.
00:07:07You know, if you have a tennis racket or a toaster, you can patent that, but you can't patent a
00:07:11part of nature.
00:07:12But General Electric and Chakrabarty were very insistent, and they took it all the way to the Supreme Court.
00:07:17And at one vote majority decision, they said, you can patent this genetically engineered microbe.
00:07:24Interestingly enough, this oil-eating microbe was never used, because even though it did eat oil and oil spills, it
00:07:31apparently ate a lot of other things for dessert.
00:07:34The floodgates were now open for genetic engineering.
00:07:38During the Reagan administration, they said, let's patent animals and then human genes and human body parts.
00:07:49I think what the companies would like to say is, we are patenting the gene.
00:07:54And wherever that gene goes, we own anything that we put it in.
00:07:58If it goes into a plant, we own the plant. If it goes into an animal, we own the animal.
00:08:03They might even say around the world, if it goes into a human being, we own that human being.
00:08:06There would be some constitutional problems with that in the United States.
00:08:09But they clearly would want their patent to follow the gene.
00:08:13The issue of patenting life has never been voted on by the people or the Congress of the United States.
00:08:20It actually means giving corporations incredibly the power to own, control the species of the earth.
00:08:31While corporations were patenting everything under the sun, they were also busy in another area.
00:08:37Starting in about 1995, the stock market was running up and Monsanto was buying up seed companies and DuPont was
00:08:45buying Pioneer.
00:08:46And there was this, basically, the U.S. pesticide industry bought the seed industry for all intents and purposes.
00:08:53Monsanto spends $8 billion buying up seed companies.
00:08:59By the 1990s, corporations begin patenting not only GMO seeds, but seeds that haven't been genetically engineered.
00:09:07The only requirement is that they have not been patented before.
00:09:11It's one of the wonderful things about what our government has done for the years with seeds,
00:09:15is trying to save seeds so that we can preserve biodiversity.
00:09:18What companies have done is gone into those seed banks, find the seeds that aren't patented, and patent them.
00:09:23And as long as they're the first person at the patent office, they get the patent.
00:09:30It is estimated that Monsanto owns 11,000 patents.
00:09:35Why would corporations do this?
00:09:37Because then they can take the one seed they want to use to replace all these seeds, and it will
00:09:42own the marketplace.
00:09:50In Canada, the question of patenting landed directly in Percy Schmeiser's field.
00:10:12I've been farming for 53 years, and in those years I've grown mostly wheat, canola, oats, and peas.
00:10:24This field has had wheat, and the field behind me has canola in it, or rapeseed as it is known
00:10:31in Europe.
00:10:33When our grandparents came to this country, there was no such thing as chemical companies or seed companies,
00:10:40and they had to rely and develop their own seed, borrow seed from their neighbors, or bring it from Europe
00:10:47with them.
00:10:49Percy was known in this part of Canada as a seed developer and a seed saver.
00:10:56I would say that our best grains, our best seeds, have not been developed by research people or scientists.
00:11:03They have been developed by farmers.
00:11:06In 1997, Percy sprayed Monsanto's Roundup around the power poles and ditches as he had done for years.
00:11:13Some canola plants did not die.
00:11:15I thought initially that some of those plants didn't die because I had been spraying year after year after year
00:11:22with Roundup in the same area,
00:11:24and companies warn you, you shouldn't spray every year because you could develop a resistance.
00:11:30Monsanto found out about it, and they went on my land that I farmed without my knowledge, without my permission,
00:11:35and took plants or seeds and said some of that was Monsanto's Roundup ready canola.
00:11:42In August the 6th of 1998, they launched a lawsuit against me.
00:11:49Monsanto claimed that Percy had illegally obtained their genetically modified canola without a license,
00:11:54and had infringed on their patent.
00:11:59Patents, historically, have been for things like, I've used the example of a carburetor.
00:12:04Well, a carburetor doesn't get up one day and start replicating itself everywhere and introducing itself into your car,
00:12:11so that all of a sudden you have somebody else's carburetor one morning, and then you get sued for patent
00:12:16infringement.
00:12:17So that's the unique nature of this type of technology, that once you've unleashed it into the environment, uncontrolled and
00:12:26unconfined, it will spread everywhere.
00:12:33Before the main trial, Monsanto withdrew then all their allegations against me that I had ever obtained a seat illegally.
00:12:43And they went on to say that it didn't matter how the seat got on to my land, I still
00:12:49infringed on their patent.
00:12:51Because my land is on the east side of the road, the main road, the prevailing winds here are from
00:12:57the west.
00:12:57So it would be natural for the canola that blew off the trucks to land in the field here.
00:13:03In fact, one farmer told me that when he drove past my land hauling around a Brady Canola, his tarp
00:13:12had broken,
00:13:12and he estimated he lost enough past my two miles of land to seed 2,000 acres.
00:13:19Well, I think one of the biggest issues in the case is where to draw the line between the people
00:13:25and the companies who produce
00:13:27and come up with this new technology, the line ended up being drawn way into the farmer's fields.
00:13:35And our contention was the line should clearly be drawn such that farmers have a right to continue to farm.
00:13:42They should be able to save and reuse their own seed.
00:13:45They should be able to buy seed, conventional seed, from their neighbors as they've had in the past,
00:13:50without having to worry about whether they're infringing somebody's patent now.
00:13:55In 1999, when I went to seed my canola fields, I was advised by my lawyer not to use my
00:14:03own seed again
00:14:04because I now knew it was contaminated by Monsanto's genetic altered canola.
00:14:09And it was seed that was adapted to this region and grew quite well because it was resistant to various
00:14:14diseases.
00:14:16Percy destroyed over 1,000 pounds of seed that he and his wife had developed over decades.
00:14:24The lawsuit and my loss of my seeds was the hardest thing that could have ever happened to us.
00:14:32Now here in Monsanto comes along, what we worked for all these years, they just want to take it away
00:14:37just like that from us.
00:14:39I could never do that to go into their office and take anything I would prosecute.
00:14:46And they can just come and do anything to the farmers just like they own them or so.
00:14:52It really is upsetting.
00:14:53And I feel they've taken my rights away and my privacy.
00:14:57And we're not the only ones they've been doing too, as many others.
00:15:02Why are they prosecuting so many of these little farmers when they only mean worth a couple hundred thousand,
00:15:07when they're such a multinational company?
00:15:11Why?
00:15:13Is it greed or is it they just want to control all the seeds?
00:15:23In the summer of 2000, my family and I were discussing how rude we thought it was that Monsanto never
00:15:32sent us a letter or thanked us for cooperating with their investigation into our business.
00:15:40We were stunned when in late July of the year 2000, we received a letter from a law firm in
00:15:48New Orleans that was representing Monsanto Company,
00:15:51accusing us of infringing on their patent.
00:15:55Every accused grower in the United States that I have talked to had nearly identical stories.
00:16:01They come and test your crop.
00:16:02The farmers that have nothing to hide figure, well, they'll find that we didn't plant this crop that they see.
00:16:07And they come back over a year later and accuse you of this when the farmer can't go back and
00:16:12take crop samples and disprove them.
00:16:15Monsanto had told us that they had sampled all 3,850 acres of our soybean crop.
00:16:21The samplers would have had to have been gathering one sample continuously every 20 seconds.
00:16:29After examining the testimony that we gave, realized their story didn't add up.
00:16:35Now they changed their story, saying they only took a handful of samples per field.
00:16:40Are we to assume that they were lying in their first attempt to extort money from us, or are they
00:16:45lying now?
00:16:48Estimates are that Monsanto has sent out 9,000 letters to farmers.
00:16:53Most farmers choose to pay to avoid lawsuits.
00:16:58Even so, there are 100 active lawsuits in the United States alone.
00:17:04When the farmers do settle with Monsanto, they have to agree to never discuss their settlement.
00:17:13We feel that we were profiled by Monsanto because of the size of our farm.
00:17:17And that they wanted to try to make an example out of us to scare other farmers into never saving
00:17:23their own seed.
00:17:24To be too scared to save their own seed.
00:17:39Eventually, my case went to court after two and a half years.
00:17:42And Monsanto dragged me through those courts in pretrial.
00:17:46They did everything to break me and basically took all of our retirement funds.
00:17:50Because just my lower fees alone, up to date, have been about $200,000.
00:17:56One of the sons said, Mom and Dad, I hope we won't get you down because they're trying to destroy
00:18:02you.
00:18:02But I hope you're strong and you'll just get through it all.
00:18:07He says, that's the only way changes will be made in our country with these big companies.
00:18:14Monsanto ready to wage war.
00:18:17Schmeiser's case opened the door for Monsanto to pursue other patent breaches.
00:18:21A lot of people have asked me why I didn't just settle.
00:18:25I probably could have settled for maybe a slap on the wrist or maybe a few thousand dollars fine.
00:18:31But what I did was talk it over with my wife and said, look, they destroyed our seed.
00:18:38Everything we've worked for in the last 50 years.
00:18:41And if I signed this, that I grew genetic altered canola without a license when we were doing our own
00:18:50thing, minding our own business, I couldn't live with myself.
00:18:53And I feel that it was taking my fundamental rights away from me.
00:18:58My grandparents left a system like that way back turn of the century to get away from control and a
00:19:05feudal type system.
00:19:06Are we going to want to go back to that?
00:19:08And we said no.
00:19:10We'll fight it and stand up for what we believe in.
00:19:19And what did the judge rule after two and a half weeks of trial?
00:19:24He said it didn't matter how Monsanto's genetic altered canola got into my field.
00:19:31And then he went on and specified.
00:19:33He said whether it cross-pollinated or if it blew in by the wind, by birds, bees, animals, or falling
00:19:41off a farmer's truck, a combine and so on, it didn't matter.
00:19:44The fact that there was some plants there, I violated Monsanto's patent, even though I didn't want it in my
00:19:51field.
00:19:52Number two, which is the most important one, I think, he ruled, any farmer that has a regular conventional plant,
00:20:00it doesn't matter what kind of plant, if it's a tree, if it's a seed, and it gets cross-pollinated
00:20:07with Monsanto's gene against your wishes and destroys your property, my plant becomes Monsanto's property.
00:20:15Now stop and think what that means to farmers all over the world, farmers, gardeners, anything to do with a
00:20:22light-giving form.
00:20:23The third issue, he ruled, the fact that I never used Monsanto's patent, which means I never used Monsanto's Roundup
00:20:32Ready herbicide or glyphosate on my crop, he ruled that's immaterial.
00:20:37He said the fact was that there were some plants there.
00:20:40So that shows you the power of patent law over farmers' rights.
00:20:50If you go and look at a canola field, that's one half GMO, one half regular canola, you will not
00:20:55be able to tell the difference between the two.
00:20:58They grow the same, they act the same. The only way you'll be able to discover it's theirs if you
00:21:02go spray Roundup.
00:21:04Well, what you killed is your own, and what survived belongs to Monsanto now, as a result of this case.
00:21:22In the last two months, I probably had 100 phone calls, minimum, about people finding canola in their fields that
00:21:30never ever had it before.
00:21:34And I think it would be safe to say that it would be very difficult to find one field in
00:21:40Western Canada that would not now be contaminated to some degree with Monsanto's GMO canola.
00:22:15And I think it would be very difficult to find one field, and I think the only way you are,
00:22:16not the only way you are, not the only way you're going to find one field in Western Canada.
00:22:16And the last three months, that you could find one field in Western Canada as a result.
00:22:17There's an old sort of ethic that emerged in agricultural communities, and I grew up
00:22:24with that ethic.
00:22:25And the basic ethic was that if I decided to bring an agricultural enterprise into my
00:22:32neighborhood that was potentially damaging to my neighbors, for example, if I decide
00:22:37to raise cattle, and those cattle are potentially very damaging to my neighbor's crops, it's
00:22:43my responsibility to fence the cattle in.
00:22:45It's not my neighbor's responsibility to fence them out to prevent damage to his crops.
00:22:50The way that the system is functioning now, it's my responsibility to fence that technology
00:22:55out from my crops.
00:22:56And of course, there's no way that you can build a fence high enough to prevent that.
00:22:59We know that now.
00:23:03All species have developed elaborate mechanisms over millions of years to protect their cells
00:23:08from invasion from foreign DNA.
00:23:12Genetic engineers have to overcome the integrity of the species barrier to insert a new genetic
00:23:17trait into a plant or animal.
00:23:19animal.
00:23:20When scientists began genetic engineering 30 years ago, they believed that one gene expressed
00:23:26one trait, that transgenic DNA would be stable even when forced to cross species barriers.
00:23:32A new technique of molecular biology appears to have allowed us to outdo the standard events
00:23:39of evolution.
00:23:42In 1975, a conference of pioneers in genetic engineering was held to discuss the issues of safety and
00:23:50ethics of the newly discovered transgenic research.
00:23:53Some biologists argued for a moratorium on research until the safety of the technology could be established.
00:24:00It is not known what's on risk this is going to create because we have no tests.
00:24:06The conference delegates voted against the moratorium, but did pledge to keep all recombinant DNA and
00:24:13genetically engineered organisms contained safely within laboratories.
00:24:33Currently, both agriculture and medical biotechnology use genetic engineering.
00:24:39medical biotechnology has created many life-saving products.
00:24:56These pharmaceuticals are made under controlled conditions in secure labs.
00:25:00genetics.
00:25:01Genetically modified plants, unlike drugs, reproduce and once released into the environment, cannot
00:25:08be controlled.
00:25:12Using biotechnology to produce food is not new.
00:25:16For nearly 6,000 years, people have used yeast, a living organism, to make bread rise.
00:25:22And we've used biotech for almost as long to ferment beer and wine.
00:25:27So there's really nothing new here.
00:25:30But that is completely wrong.
00:25:32Genetic engineering is really a radical revolution in food production.
00:25:35It's really a cell invasion technology.
00:25:38You know, people have heard they're taking a flounder gene and putting it in tomato so the
00:25:43tomato can last in cold temperatures.
00:25:46But people ask, how does that flounder gene get in that tomato?
00:25:50How does it get in there?
00:25:50And what really happens is, the only way you can do it is to invade the cell of the tomato
00:25:56and deposit the flounder gene.
00:25:57Well, what's good at invading cells?
00:26:00Bacteria and viruses.
00:26:04After 12 years of searching, Monsanto found a soil bacteria that is naturally immune to
00:26:09Roundup herbicide.
00:26:12Their goal was to genetically engineer DNA from these bacteria into various plants.
00:26:22They cut out a sequence of DNA that is resistant to Roundup.
00:26:27But if this DNA sequence alone is inserted into a corn plant, it will have no effect.
00:26:32So the next step involves E. coli bacteria.
00:26:39Gaps are created in the E. coli DNA, and when the two test tubes are mixed together,
00:26:45some of the E. coli DNA recombines with the Roundup-resistant bacteria.
00:26:54Then the technicians smuggle the engineered DNA into the cells of the corn plant they want
00:27:00to modify.
00:27:02Cells will naturally reject foreign DNA.
00:27:05So they developed a method using soil bacteria that causes tumors in plants.
00:27:11They use this bacteria to ferry the engineered DNA into the plant's nucleus.
00:27:18There are also two other methods used to get the engineered DNA through the cell wall.
00:27:23One uses a stream of electricity to create tiny holes in the plant cells so they become vulnerable
00:27:30to infiltration by foreign DNA.
00:27:35Another is the gene gun, which blasts particles of gold coated with engineered DNA into the plant
00:27:41cells.
00:27:46Each of these three methods needs a promoter gene that turns on the desired characteristics.
00:27:53The promoter gene is often extracted from the cauliflower mosaic virus.
00:28:02This capacity of bacteria and viruses to invade mammals in different ways is what really has
00:28:11a lot of people edgy about biotechnology because that's really what the tools are all about.
00:28:16In order to move genetic material from one organism to another that don't normally cross,
00:28:22you've got to sort of behave like bacteria and viruses and invade into the cells and become
00:28:30established just like the virus must become established.
00:28:33And they do one more thing.
00:28:35They attach to that an antibiotic marker system.
00:28:38The antibiotic marker is a gene which is naturally resistant to a specific antibiotic.
00:28:43So later they can test whether the genetic cassette is being expressed.
00:28:48The most cataclysmic force in the food system right now is the fact that the medical community
00:28:55is just terrified about the loss of antibiotics.
00:29:00No one really understands how using antibiotic marker genes in genetic engineering techniques
00:29:08might contribute to the problem.
00:29:11The biomedical community on a worldwide basis is absolutely focused on this problem now.
00:29:31As we move on into this so-called biotech revolution and we start producing more and more transgenic manipulations,
00:29:39we'll start seeing pieces of DNA interacting with each other in ways that are totally unpredictable.
00:29:45We have now learned that genes function in complex networks and a single gene can express or influence many traits.
00:29:55I think this is probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into.
00:30:06The flavor saver tomato was the first genetically engineered food to reach the public.
00:30:13Calgene, the corporation that produced the tomato, had done three voluntary feeding studies on rats
00:30:18and found lesions in some of the rats' stomachs.
00:30:22Over the objections of several government scientists, the tomatoes were approved in May 1994.
00:30:29The flavor saver tomato didn't hold up in shipping and consumers didn't like it, so it was taken off the
00:30:35market.
00:30:38The first time many Americans became aware that genetically modified foods were part of their everyday diet was in the
00:30:45year 2001.
00:30:49Last fall during lunch with co-workers, Grace Booth enjoyed three chicken enchiladas.
00:30:55The food she recalls was very good, but then something went very wrong.
00:30:59I felt my chest getting tight and it was hard to breathe.
00:31:04She didn't know, but she was going into shock.
00:31:07What are you thinking at this point?
00:31:09I thought, oh my God, what is happening to me? What is going on? Something is very, very wrong.
00:31:15I felt like I was going to die.
00:31:17In the emergency room in nearby Oakland, the diagnosis was severe allergic reaction.
00:31:24And from here, Grace Booth's story reached official Washington.
00:31:28At the time, the national corn market was in an uproar.
00:31:32Starlink, a gene-modified corn not approved for human food, had been found in taco shelves
00:31:38and recalls were emptying the shelves of corn products.
00:31:41The fear was possible allergic reactions.
00:31:44If I want a bowl of cornflakes, I want to know that it's safe to eat a bowl of cornflakes.
00:31:49Do you feel that level of safety right now?
00:31:51Absolutely not.
00:31:52It is almost inevitable that there have been thousands of people that have had,
00:31:57from a very mild to perhaps serious allergic reaction to Starlink, you know.
00:32:02If it had not been for public interest organizations going in and testing that corn on our own,
00:32:09doing the government's job for it, this scandal would never have come out
00:32:12and this potential health risk to humans never would have been discovered.
00:32:18There are three government agencies which are responsible for the safety of GMOs.
00:32:24The Department of Agriculture is responsible for assessing the environmental impacts of GMO crops
00:32:30and regulates GMO field testing.
00:32:35But a study of over 8,000 GMO field test applications showed that the USDA did not require a single
00:32:42environmental assessment.
00:32:49The environmental protection agency regulates insecticides.
00:32:55BT, a natural insecticide, is engineered into every cell of genetically engineered BT crops.
00:33:07The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for food safety.
00:33:11Any novel substance in food must be tested.
00:33:16When the biotech companies went to get regulatory approval,
00:33:20they did so on the basis that what they were doing was substantially equivalent,
00:33:24was the term which was being used, substantially equivalent to, you know, classical breeding practices.
00:33:30And therefore, it should not be regulated in any way.
00:33:33At the same time, however, companies have insisted on patenting their products.
00:33:39And in order to get a patent, it has to be different than anything else.
00:33:42So, on the one hand, we're saying it's very different because we don't want to patent it,
00:33:45but on the other hand, it's substantially equivalent, so don't bug us with regulation.
00:33:48Substantial equivalency is obviously nonsense.
00:33:50These, at the cellular level, again, these foods have bacteria, viruses, new genetic constructs
00:33:56that no other food's ever had in history.
00:33:58They're clearly not equivalent.
00:34:03Since GMOs were considered substantially equivalent to regular food,
00:34:07they fall into the GRAS, or generally recognized as safe category,
00:34:12and the government does not require testing or labeling.
00:34:17To me, one of the most incomprehensible things about U.S. policy
00:34:21is that we do not even require the labeling of genetically engineered foods.
00:34:24Many of those GMOs are in the form of corn syrup and soy lecithin.
00:34:30In 2002, a concerned mother in Oregon put a couple thousand dollars into an initiative to label GMOs.
00:34:38How can we trust the same multinational corporations that told us
00:34:42that PCBs, DDT, and dioxin are safe?
00:34:44They don't even want us to know what it is that we're eating.
00:34:48The FDA ignored their own scientists' warnings about the dangers of genetically engineered foods.
00:34:53This is our children's future we're talking about.
00:34:56Let's join 25 other countries that require labeling.
00:35:00It doesn't cost their farmers or consumers anymore.
00:35:03Vote yes on 27.
00:35:05Let's label genetically engineered foods.
00:35:08The measure was defeated by the $4.6 million industry campaign that features a farmer who resembles the mother.
00:35:17The last thing we need is more government red tape, more bureaucracy, and higher costs.
00:35:23But that's exactly what Oregon farmers, consumers, and taxpayers would get if Measure 27 passes.
00:35:30Poll after poll has revealed that 80 to 90 percent of Americans want GMO food labeled.
00:35:38But the genetically engineered Food Right to Know Act that Representative Kucinich, Senator Boxer, and others have introduced every year
00:35:45since 1999,
00:35:47is still waiting to be voted on by Congress.
00:35:52The public in Europe has reacted with anger and concern at the idea that genetically engineered food products will be
00:36:01on their supermarket shelves.
00:36:02The latest polls showed at least 75 percent of the European public do not want genetically engineered food.
00:36:08In response to demand from their citizens, all 15 countries of the European Union adopted rules requiring the labeling of
00:36:16genetically engineered food.
00:36:21But I think there's a very good reason why the corporations have fought so hard against this labeling.
00:36:26It isn't just about consumer choice.
00:36:29Without labeling, there's no real traceability for the health effects of genetically engineered foods.
00:36:35If you're a mother and you're feeding your baby infant formula, and it's not labeled as genetically engineered with soy,
00:36:42for example,
00:36:43and your child has a toxic or allergic reaction, there's no way you're going to know that that was caused
00:36:48by genetic engineering because it's not on the label.
00:36:50If, however, it is on the label, then you can say, you know what, maybe that contributed to this response
00:36:55in my child.
00:36:56You go to your doctor, your doctor records it, and there's traceability, and we can begin to get a database
00:37:01on the health effects.
00:37:02And, of course, once that database is created, then we have liability to the corporations.
00:37:08So they're opposing labeling, not just because it creates choice and they're afraid that their products will not be bought,
00:37:13but also because labeling is the key way we can trace the health effects of genetically engineered foods
00:37:19and the key way to get the corporations liable for these health effects.
00:37:32The Japanese people are deeply concerned about the effects of genetically modified food.
00:37:38A trade representative stated we will watch the children in the United States for the next 10 years.
00:37:44What they are doing, I'm going to learn how to get rid of the doctors.
00:37:47And then I'm gonna know how to approach their doctors.
00:37:59I'm gonna know what I'm gonna call them in the United States for the next few years.
00:38:03Well, I'm gonna know what the doctors are doing to learn from what they're doing to become your child.
00:38:04I'm gonna know what they're doing to learn from the doctors.
00:38:05I'm gonna know what the doctors is,
00:38:06if you can't give me the doctors.
00:38:06And sometimes the doctors...
00:38:06My son was here.
00:38:13I am going to have a doctorate or anything.
00:38:15In addition to claiming these products were safe, the biotech industry claimed they would
00:38:20increase yield.
00:38:22Advances in biotechnology can help us produce more food on land we already cultivate or
00:38:28on land that's currently unsuitable for farming.
00:38:32Monsanto submitted a regulatory package to both the FDA and the EPA for Roundup Ready
00:38:38Soybeans, the first really big commercial crop.
00:38:41It's really very curious how shallow actually the science was.
00:38:47They didn't look at routine stresses, drought, plant pathogens, other things that soybean
00:38:54plants deal with in the environment.
00:38:56In the year 2000, a team of scientists based at the University of Arkansas documented decreases
00:39:02in the size of the root system and under droughty conditions, these reductions were 25%.
00:39:09Now that 25% impairment is going to translate into several bushels of loss yield in any part
00:39:19of the world.
00:39:20It's a very big impact.
00:39:23The other gap in the regulatory reviews was that no one bothered to explore the impact
00:39:29of the spraying of Roundup over the top of soybean plants on the capacity of the soybean plant
00:39:36to affix nitrogen.
00:39:37And it's one of the most important environmental benefits of soybeans.
00:39:42It's a legume, like peas.
00:39:44So you don't have to put nitrogen fertilizer in your garden when you're growing peas or soybeans.
00:39:50And we're only now starting to study this because farmers have observed problems in some fields
00:39:58with Roundup-ready soybeans.
00:39:59I mean, they just did terrible and couldn't explain why.
00:40:09One of the biggest threats to yield comes from superweeds, weeds that have become resistant
00:40:15to herbicides like Roundup.
00:40:19In 2003, Meristail, a superweed, spread into 21 states.
00:40:25Now farmers have to use dangerous chemicals such as 2,4-D, which is similar to Agent Orange
00:40:30and has been proven to cause birth defects.
00:40:34Instead of spraying less, they are spraying more.
00:40:48But how did this controversial new technology get approved by the government in the first
00:40:53place?
00:40:54At the end of the first Bush administration, George Bush's administration, Dan Quayle ran
00:41:00something called the Competitiveness Council.
00:41:01We will ensure that biotech products will receive the same oversight as other products, instead
00:41:08of being hampered by unnecessary regulation.
00:41:11What Quayle's Council recommended is that there be no regulation at all for these foods.
00:41:15This outraged FDA scientists.
00:41:18There is voluminous documentation saying that FDA scientists said this food needs to be tested.
00:41:23This food can be toxic.
00:41:25This food can create new allergens.
00:41:27The genetic engineering process, the cell invasion technique that is genetic engineering,
00:41:31can lower nutrition.
00:41:32It can create immune problems in laboratory animals.
00:41:35All these things need to be tested, much less the environmental effects.
00:41:39But Dan Quayle and his council said, no way, we want to be the first in the world to market
00:41:43this food.
00:41:45FDA still said no.
00:41:47So what did they do?
00:41:48They brought in a deputy commissioner for food policy, a man named Michael Taylor.
00:41:53Michael Taylor used to work at King & Spalding as Monsanto's senior counselor.
00:41:58He had written up the industry regulations, which were basically no regulations, and of
00:42:03course he allowed this no regulation policy to become official U.S. policy in 1992.
00:42:08Monsanto employees and government regulatory agency employees are the same people.
00:42:14And to give you one example, there's countless names on this list, but one that kind of stands
00:42:20out to me, the biggest is Linda Fisher.
00:42:24Linda Fisher for the past seven years has been an executive vice president for Monsanto Corporation.
00:42:32She is now the deputy minister for the EPA.
00:42:36Also as a deputy minister under George Bush senior's administration.
00:42:41Prior to that, she was with Monsanto, and prior to that, she was with the EPA.
00:42:49She's been back and forth three times, and the list goes on and on like that in Washington.
00:43:06MUSIC PLAYS
00:43:35I have written a letter to our attorney general, John Ashcroft.
00:43:39And I beg him for help with this monumental crisis that farmers are facing and we're facing.
00:43:46His response was that it is not their policy to get involved in private litigation matters.
00:43:55I have since learned that Mr. John Ashcroft has submitted a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court
00:44:01regarding a similar patent infringement case to be heard in October.
00:44:06He preyed upon the Supreme Court to uphold these new plant patents to protect the corporations that own the patents.
00:44:14Upon learning this, I also learned that Mr. Ashcroft had received the largest campaign contribution
00:44:20that Monsanto gave any 2000 political candidate in his failed bid for Senate re-election.
00:44:44Deregulate, which is basically telling from the executive branch everybody to look the other way.
00:44:51Companies now do testing themselves and report their findings to the government.
00:44:56The process is voluntary.
00:45:00If we started really asking the right questions, we would stop this technology for the next 50 or 100 years.
00:45:06But just the opposite has happened.
00:45:09In the U.S. alone, genetically modified canola, corn, cotton, and soybeans, which were nonexistent in the 1980s,
00:45:16were grown on 3.7 million acres in 1996.
00:45:22That jumped to 100 million acres in 2003.
00:45:31In 1998, Mexico banned the planting of genetically engineered corn to protect their agricultural heritage.
00:45:39In Mexico, there are literally hundreds of varieties of corn.
00:45:43Some of them are adapted to very wet climates, some to very dry climates.
00:45:49Some of them are resistant to certain specific pests.
00:45:52Some of them have different tastes.
00:45:54Some of them are good for doing popcorn that was invented by the Aztecs.
00:45:58Some varieties are good to make tortillas or to feed the cattle.
00:46:02There's a whole bunch of kinds of corn in Mexico.
00:46:16Around 7,000 years ago, the people who lived in Mexico started domesticating maize, or corn,
00:46:23and an intimate relationship developed between humans and the plant.
00:46:29Corn is not only their food supply, it is also part of the culture.
00:46:47In the mountains in Jalisco, the farmers plant on purpose their corn fields near areas where the wild corn grows,
00:46:57the teocintle.
00:46:57And the reason why they do that is because they know perfectly well that they get resistance to pests transferred
00:47:06from the wild strain into the cultivated strain.
00:47:11We don't know which parts of that diversity are going to be useful, and we need to preserve them all.
00:47:16Now, most of the diversity for crops is contained within so-called land races.
00:47:22These are the plants that small farmers, generally in very diverse areas of the world, maintain in very small plots,
00:47:32with selection for the very specific conditions of the plots.
00:47:35which might be certain altitude, frost, or drought, or very specific conditions.
00:47:41That is really the basis of diversity that we are continuously tapping from to maintain our commercial production of crops,
00:47:49to feed the world basically.
00:48:01The 1970 corn blight in the United States destroyed millions of acres of corn.
00:48:07The U.S. was lucky to find a strain of landrace corn, originally from Mexico, that could resist the blight.
00:48:16In the year 2000, Dr. Ciappella discovered genetically modified corn growing in this remote area.
00:48:25The Campesino farmers had bought kernels of unlabeled American GM corn from their local government store to eat.
00:48:32And as farmers have done for thousands of years, they ate some and planted some.
00:48:38Farmers make no difference between seed and grain, for the obvious reason that grains are seeds, and are viable seeds.
00:48:46They have a little embryo, they have the little baby inside the seed, and if you put it in the
00:48:49ground, it will germinate.
00:48:52The genetically modified seed crossed with the landrace corn, and contamination entered the gene line of this ancient grain.
00:49:12It is cheaper for Mexicans to buy imported corn from the United States than it is to grow it themselves.
00:49:19This is because American corn is subsidized by the taxpayers, whereas Mexican corn is not subsidized.
00:49:26Nevertheless, many Mexicans prefer to grow their native corn varieties.
00:49:31Why are you so mad at planting the same seed?
00:49:34In the selection.
00:49:35Which do not buy?
00:49:36Well, we take it as a savings.
00:49:39Because sometimes, if we have a lack of economic loss, we don't have to run to the corn to buy
00:49:46it.
00:49:47However, we are eating the best of corn.
00:50:04The farmers said, if we do have transgenic elements in our corn, is it going to be like our colleague
00:50:13in Canada, will the multinational companies come and demand payment for the presence of the gene?
00:50:28In November 2001, Dr. Ciappella published a peer-reviewed paper in the science journal Nature, revealing the GMO contamination.
00:50:42We took this very seriously from the beginning.
00:50:46And we have been doing studies and collecting samples and sending them around, trying first to duplicate Ignacio Ciappella's results,
00:50:54which we did, and now going a step further and identify this problem.
00:50:58This is an issue that is a bit contentious, because we didn't want to in any way jeopardize our genetic
00:51:07heritage.
00:51:08The first thing is, we didn't want that to happen.
00:51:12Whether that is going to have other consequences, well, that's a matter of debate.
00:51:18The fact is, those sequences were not supposed to be in those cores, and they are now.
00:51:25And that's a big problem for us.
00:51:35What happens when you introduce into these areas a single genotype, the one industrial crop, that preferentially passes its genes
00:51:47into the progeny?
00:51:49What happens is, basically, you crowd out that diversity.
00:51:53And this, in the long term, is a major threat to food security.
00:51:57Not only for those people who live there, but also for us, also for our industrial production of food.
00:52:04If we do not have access to those genetic resources, we're going to be facing challenges that we are not
00:52:10going to be able to solve.
00:52:14It is not just genetically modified corn that has raised patenting issues in Mexico.
00:52:20Current international system of patents does not protect in any way traditional knowledge.
00:52:25And we have had a number of problems in Mexico related to that.
00:52:30I think there are three or four applications for patents for tortillas.
00:52:33Like it was a new thing.
00:52:36Like somebody had invented tortillas, which of course have existed for 3,000, 5,000 years, we don't know.
00:52:46First of all, some people will debate, and I think it is a worthwhile debate, if life should be patented
00:52:55at all.
00:52:56And that's a discussion that humanity as a species hasn't done properly.
00:53:01And it is a sort of pending homework, something we need to do.
00:53:08I'll talk to you next time.
00:53:19We'll see you next time.
00:53:20Bye.
00:53:20Bye.
00:53:21Bye.
00:53:22Bye.
00:53:23Bye.
00:53:24Bye.
00:53:34Bye.
00:53:35Bye.
00:53:40Oh, my God.
00:54:16By the year 2003, the U.S. had sold millions of pounds of GMO corn to Mexico for less than
00:54:23the cost of growing it. Around the world, resistance was mounting against the U.S. exported genetically
00:54:41modified crops. The loss of corn exports to Europe is worth around $300 million a year.
00:55:04This has only compounded the farm crisis in North America.
00:55:09On the one side of the farmer, there's the oil and natural gas companies and fertilizer
00:55:14companies, seed and chemical and machinery companies and banks. And then the farmer is
00:55:19literally in the middle of an agri-food chain. Downstream, there's processors, railways, grain
00:55:25companies, restaurants, packers, etc. And what's happened in that chain is each link, with the
00:55:34exception of the farm link, is being dominated by fewer and fewer larger and larger corporations.
00:55:39Those huge corporations that face little competition are able to extract extremely large revenues
00:55:44and profits out of that chain and leave very little for the family farmers. And what the
00:55:49family farmers do get is quickly snatched away by chemical and seed and fertilizer companies,
00:55:56who themselves have tremendous market power. Farmers are not the ones making the money. There's money
00:56:01being made on both sides of the farmers, but not the farmers.
00:56:05When you put a dollar and a half on the counter for a loaf of bread, that money then moves
00:56:11through the
00:56:11hands of the retailer. And these are $10 billion corporations with only one or two competitors.
00:56:17And the miller that makes the flour can do the same thing. The grain company that sourced the grain.
00:56:23And by the time it gets back to the farm, there's only nickel left. And of that nickel, you've got
00:56:28those powerful input
00:56:29suppliers on the other side who can take that nickel right out of the farmer's pocket.
00:56:33I just did a study of the economic costs and benefits of BT corn. The official USDA statistics show that
00:56:42the cost of producing a bushel of corn is about $3.20 or $3.40 and the net return to
00:56:49the farmers, maybe $2.20.
00:56:51So they're losing a dollar on every bushel. And one might ask, well, how is a businessman if you're losing
00:56:57a dollar on every unit that you sell and you're growing 140 per acre, so you're losing like, you know,
00:57:02$140 an acre, how can you stay in business? And the answer is government subsidies.
00:57:07Subsidies support the most widely grown crops, corn, wheat, cotton, and soybeans.
00:57:14These are the crops that the industry has targeted as the first GMO crops.
00:57:20So if you're an agribusiness company producing inputs into a market,
00:57:26and especially inputs that are going to be more expensive, it must be reassuring to you to know that
00:57:34regardless of how big the gap is between what the farmers get from the market and what it cost them
00:57:41to
00:57:41produce, the government's going to be there to make up that difference.
00:57:45In 2002, President Bush signed one of the largest subsidy bills yet.
00:57:52Although it's certainly not labeled the GMO seed rebate, nonetheless, it's part of what's keeping
00:57:59farmers interested in these costly production systems.
00:58:07This results in every American taxpayer paying a personal subsidy to the agricultural biotech industry.
00:58:17The United States subsidizes its crops. Europe subsidizes its farmers.
00:58:23And Canada and Mexico subsidize neither.
00:58:27Farmers that are producing grain right now are quite clearly losing money on every bushel.
00:58:31The prices are below the cost of production.
00:58:34On a lot of farms, families deal with that by one or both spouses taking an off-farm job.
00:58:40And the irony is they bring that money back to the farm and use it to pay those input bills.
00:58:45So you literally have the case where small family farmers and their spouses are working off-farm
00:58:51and subsidizing Monsanto and chemical companies, fertilizer companies with that money.
00:59:02If you talk to people in agricultural circles about, well, what's the important skill of farming?
00:59:09You know, it's marketing. It's taking full advantage of the government programs.
00:59:13It's dealing well with your banker and all the people that you lease land from and managing equipment well.
00:59:22And, you know, those are the skill sets. It's not their understanding of the biology of their soils
00:59:28or their production system or the traditional skills that one would think about.
00:59:34You know, what it takes to be a farmer in America today has really changed.
00:59:38And the skill set of farmers has become divorced from the managing of this biological process,
00:59:45which we call food production.
01:00:03In rural America, people value community and neighborliness and friendship.
01:00:09But as farms get bigger and more homogenous and more of the control of the capital
01:00:15and the management decisions gets moved to St. Louis or Minneapolis or Kansas City.
01:00:20And you've really just got sort of hired hands out there on the farm.
01:00:24There's an erosion of the richness of the community that shares that space.
01:00:29And a lot of things get sort of lost as a result of that.
01:00:37My family has been enduring a living hell since this began.
01:00:40I am sure this is what led to my father's recent heart attack.
01:00:46He has been physically and emotionally shattered since this began.
01:00:52It has been heart-wrenching to watch our reputations be destroyed in our own community
01:00:57over something we did not do.
01:01:00I believe that the patenting of crops that extend to the progeny,
01:01:05in other words, the seed that a crop produces, like soybeans here,
01:01:10which cannot be kept controlled or kept separated on our farms,
01:01:15is nothing short of insane.
01:01:26A lot of people in the industry try and paint a picture that, you know, listen,
01:01:31you know, 60% of our food is, you know, processed food has some genetic engineered product in it,
01:01:36so forget it. It's over. Your resistance is useless.
01:01:39Well, this is nonsense. The vast majority of our foods, the wheat, the rice, our fruits,
01:01:43the vegetables are not genetically engineered. The vast majority of the food we eat is not
01:01:48genetically engineered. But right now, probably the key issue is the current controversy over
01:01:55genetically engineered wheat.
01:02:03Even some of the farmers that thought they might like genetically modified canola originally
01:02:07are saying no to genetically modified wheat. We had the Canadian Wheat Board sitting at the table
01:02:13with Greenpeace and the Canadian Health Coalition, the Council of Canadians and a whole bunch of farm
01:02:19organizations. And they had a news conference to release a letter to the Prime Minister that said,
01:02:24we don't want GM wheat. And that letter was signed by an additional 200 organizations.
01:02:30Genetically modified wheat is a very, very serious concern for us up in North Dakota. And we have
01:02:35124 acres of GMO wheat planted in research plots throughout the state. We don't know where those
01:02:42research plots are, although that's, you know, proprietary information. So there's already the potential
01:02:59for contamination.
01:03:00If a custom combiner combines some GMO wheat and then goes to combining some non-GMO wheat,
01:03:06the contamination is going to occur. When it does, we'll lose our markets. It's that simple.
01:03:11What Monsanto told our legislature here in North Dakota was that if they attempted to put a moratorium
01:03:17on the introduction of this wheat, that one, they would pull all of their research dollars out of our
01:03:24state and our universities, which I quite frankly was very happy to hear. And two, they would file a
01:03:31lawsuit against the state of North Dakota for anti-commerce. This was the way that they tried to sell us
01:03:39the state a new product.
01:04:01In the past, there were public institutions that supplied the farmers objective analysis of new technologies.
01:04:08Universities started playing an important role in asking questions about these back then in the 70s.
01:04:14But soon enough, it was evident that we did not want to have universities asking questions. So there
01:04:19was a big influx of money from industry to support research at universities. And that led to research
01:04:28that was favorable to the development of the industry and publicity that was simply promotional of the technologies.
01:04:36The reality is that in our land-grant university system and certainly in the U.S. Department of Agriculture,
01:04:43there's a small tolerance for people doing research that directly challenges the conventional wisdom.
01:04:53It's ridiculous. You know, the recent work that we've done on the movement of transgenes in corn in the
01:05:00centers of diversification was run on $2,000. Compare that to $25 million coming the other way in exactly my
01:05:11college.
01:05:11And that is the only piece of work that I know is actually happening.
01:05:17The biotech industry aggressively attacked scientists whose research questioned the safety and impact of
01:05:23genetically modified crops. Renowned scientist Dr. Arpad Pushtay was suspended two days after discussing his research
01:05:31that raised questions about the depressed immune systems and growth of rats which had been fed genetically modified potatoes.
01:05:44Cornell University researcher John Losey found that when caterpillars of the monarch butterfly were fed BT
01:05:50corn pollen in the lab, 40% of them died unexpectedly. His research was denigrated by the biotech industry.
01:06:02Nature magazine retracted Ignacio Ciappello's paper after publishing his peer-reviewed work.
01:06:08Biotech enthusiasts challenged the interpretation of his findings.
01:06:14The biology was a very diverse field of inquiry, but because of the advent of this technology,
01:06:21we are seeing a narrowing down and a trimming off of all those branches of biology just to the benefit
01:06:26of this one side. And I very much want to fight against that. Just as we are losing genetic diversity,
01:06:33we are losing intellectual diversity that we are going to find very, very needed in the future.
01:06:42The conventional wisdom in the U.S. today is that ag biotechnology is progress. There's not a lot
01:06:49of encouragement for young scientists to carry out research that might raise questions about that basic
01:06:56judgment. The corporate control of genetic research is not limited to the field of agriculture.
01:07:06They allow the patenting of one of the genes responsible for breast cancer. And many researchers
01:07:12who've been working on a cure for breast cancer were no longer allowed to use that gene in their research
01:07:18because another company had patented it and charged them very, very high fees. Some of the major
01:07:24pharmaceutical companies have gone into university laboratories and sued those laboratories and sued
01:07:28researchers who are using the genes that they own. This is probably the largest
01:07:34private takings of what should be the commons that we all own in common that you could possibly imagine.
01:07:39And I think one of the most disturbing economic trends of our times.
01:07:48While biotech companies take over on an intellectual level and genetic engineering takes over on a cellular level,
01:07:57multinational corporations are taking over worldwide by consolidating our food supply.
01:08:03Combination of craft and Nabisco creates a real global leader in the food industry. Scale is a real advantage in
01:08:11this industry.
01:08:12As craft is proven, it increases both efficiency and effectiveness.
01:08:16The average citizen doesn't really understand both the momentum and the extent to which consolidation
01:08:22is taking place in our whole food and agriculture system. Just to give you a couple of examples,
01:08:2780 percent of our beef products now are being processed by just four companies. In seed companies,
01:08:34the vast majority of the seed that farmers plant now comes from just four clusters of companies. And what's
01:08:42even more worrisome now is in the last decade, that same kind of concentration has been taking place
01:08:47in the retail sector. And Heffernan now projects that in the next 10 years, all of the food in the
01:08:55retail
01:08:55level in the world will be controlled by six retail firms, only one of which will be American, and that's
01:09:00Walmart.
01:09:01Now that means that increasingly, we're not going to have any choice about what's on the shelves in our
01:09:06supermarkets. What's going to be there is what some broker in a consolidated firm decides is going to
01:09:12return the largest profit.
01:09:20One of the problems that the biotechnology industry has is that it's done nothing for the American
01:09:24consumer. There's nothing there. There's no genetically engineered food that does anything, no more
01:09:30nutrition, nothing for us. So how are they going to sell this technology to the American people?
01:09:35Well, they've come up with this idea that maybe biotechnology should be sold as the way to feed a
01:09:40starving world.
01:09:44With world population expected to increase by two billion people in the next 30 years,
01:09:51biotechnology could provide an important way to produce enough food.
01:09:55One major problem with that, the reason why about 800 million people starve every day,
01:09:59and that is a tragic fact, has nothing to do with the amount of food available.
01:10:04Most of these people around the world who were starving used to be farmers, but because of the
01:10:08World Bank and the National Monetary Fund giving huge loans to these countries, these countries could
01:10:13no longer allow for subsistence farming. They had to grow expensive export crops back to the first world to
01:10:20pay back those loans. So they kicked all these hundreds of millions of farmers off their farms.
01:10:25They end up in the Bopols and the Mexico cities and the Brazilians of the world without money.
01:10:31They no longer are growing their own food, and they're competing for the scarce jobs available in the
01:10:36new industrialization of these countries. They are no longer food independent. They're food dependent.
01:10:43Amartya Sen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning economist after a decade of work, pointed out again and again that
01:10:49the problem of hunger is not a production problem. It's an access problem. It's getting entitlement to
01:10:55food, not producing food. That's the problem.
01:11:06We're in fact overproducing the major commodities to the extent where farmers can't recover their
01:11:11production costs, and so we have huge subsidies. You know, we have 800 million people on this planet
01:11:16right now who are malnourished in an era of overproduction where farmers can't recover their production costs.
01:11:27When wealthy countries subsidize their crops, they undercut the markets of developing countries.
01:11:40In 1994, on Christmas Eve, by the way, for the first time we said, you know what, we're going to
01:11:44try and have
01:11:45international rules on patenting. This was driven, of course, by the United States, and here's what's behind it.
01:11:51If you have gone into a third world country and you've patented a plant or a tree, the United States
01:11:57wants to be able to go back to that country and say no one in this country, even though this
01:12:01plant
01:12:01originated here, can use it without paying us the patent fee. To do that, they've got to harmonize
01:12:07patent laws around the world. That's really the big prize for the corporations. It's one thing to make
01:12:14sure we're controlling the U.S. market, but if we can take these plants that we've gotten from the third
01:12:18world and make sure that no one in the third world can use them without paying the companies
01:12:23that patent fee. That's the big bonanza for the corporations.
01:12:28The generalized perception in Latin America, I also think in Mexico and many other parts of the world
01:12:36also, the new unipolar system has benefited the United States more than it has benefited the minorities of
01:12:45impoverished countries of the world. This is an issue of big concern because there are not so many
01:12:51political alternatives around. We may eventually go back to despotic types of rule that I don't think
01:12:59will have in any way to make countries like Latin America or Africa or Asia progress. We really need
01:13:07compassion for the people in the world that have less.
01:13:22The resistance to globalization is that it stems from the insights of some people that, you know,
01:13:29the corporations, they want to be able to go in and make the money, but they don't want responsibility
01:13:35when things don't work out. One of the most ironic parts of the fact that the biotechnology industry
01:13:41is saying that it's going to feed the world is that it has created a new technology called
01:13:46terminator technology. And this technology is basically a suicide gene that's put into crops.
01:13:52So after one planting, they commit suicide. You cannot save the seed because the seed then is sterile.
01:14:00It will lead to no crops in the next season. There's 15 patents by first world companies
01:14:05on this suicide technology. Can you imagine what is going to happen if that suicide gene
01:14:11pollutes crops around the world?
01:14:24A few years earlier, a lot of people were saying, well, won't these technologies
01:14:27outcross into wild species? And the promoters said, no, no, no, there will be no outcrossing.
01:14:33And then just in a few short years, they were back saying, well, okay, there is outcrossing,
01:14:37but now we have a new technology that'll help deal with that. And this, of course,
01:14:41raises the question, well, what about outcrossing of the terminator gene?
01:14:46They are also developing trader technology so that a farmer has to spray his field with proprietary
01:14:52chemical in order for seeds to germinate and grow.
01:14:59We have the potential of ending up with green deserts where you don't see the difference.
01:15:05You know, the environment will continue to be green, but it is being transformed from inside.
01:15:11And when that cracks, when that monoculture breaks down, it's going to be very massive.
01:15:29As we move into the future, what could we find on our supermarket shelves?
01:15:34So, until we move into the future, let's say.
01:15:35So...
01:15:36...
01:15:36...
01:15:41...
01:15:51...
01:15:51...
01:16:12There are thousands of test sites for new GMOs in the United States.
01:16:21In 2002, the USDA condemned 50 million pounds of soybeans, contaminated with GMO corn, engineered
01:16:29to manufacture a pig vaccine.
01:16:33My biggest concern is that we're merely going to go into the future believing that somehow
01:16:38the technologists are going to solve the food problem, then we're all going to be okay.
01:16:41And we're going to have a very, very rude shock.
01:16:47The biotechnology industry, of course, is not simply interested in genetically engineered
01:16:51crops.
01:16:52We are seeing them trying to extend their reach throughout the rest of the living community.
01:16:56Right now, our government is looking at approving genetically engineered fish, 15 different
01:17:00kinds of fish, as well as crustaceans and just about anything else that we eat out of the
01:17:05ocean.
01:17:06It is estimated that if just 60 genetically engineered salmon were released, the wild population
01:17:12of salmon could be extinct in 40 generations.
01:17:22genetically engineered livestock and poultry and also genetically engineered insects and trees.
01:17:40It is the industrial mindset now made the biology of our food.
01:17:45But something happened on the way to their future.
01:17:47People began to think about the consequences of our food system.
01:17:51And they said, you know what, we want a different food future.
01:17:54We want a different relationship to food, to the environment, to the farmer, to the worker,
01:17:59to our own bodies.
01:18:02What would it take to change the American food system to make farming sustainable and improve
01:18:07public health and environmental quality?
01:18:11What we are trying to do in sustainable agriculture is to use resources that are in the local ecology
01:18:18and recycle those resources within the system rather than taking resources from another system
01:18:24or another ecology and bring them in.
01:18:27And we should be using solar energy to fuel our systems as nature does rather than relying
01:18:32on imported petroleum or other resources.
01:18:34A century ago, people bought locally produced food.
01:18:39Today, food in a supermarket has traveled an average of 1,500 miles.
01:18:45Apples were grown all over America.
01:18:47Now they are shipped from China.
01:18:49This uses more imported oil and increases our dependency on other countries for food.
01:18:57The food from this farm travels an average of 50 miles.
01:19:02About 10 years ago, we started a program for Bay Area families where they can get a basket
01:19:08of our produce once a week.
01:19:09It's called community-supported agriculture.
01:19:11And our relationship with those families encouraged us to really diversify.
01:19:17And as a result, as you walk around this farm, you'll see that each field has many different
01:19:23things growing, there's fruits, nuts, citrus, there's grapes, as well as row crops like tomatoes
01:19:31and eggplant and corn.
01:19:37We've been farming organically for about 25 years because it is a system of farming where
01:19:42you are thinking about the human relationship to agriculture.
01:19:46You're thinking about primarily producing good food, food that you have no doubt about what
01:19:51character and quality it has, food that's healthy, that you have no doubt that my kids
01:19:56can eat.
01:19:57And so we've looked to evolve ourselves in a system that is diverse and healthy and sustainable.
01:20:05We have to respect nature's logic in all of this.
01:20:08We have to respect the millenniums of history that have gone into breeding.
01:20:11This is the work of thousands of generations of people who have plucked the wild onion, you
01:20:19know, developed a little bigger one, chosen that over time.
01:20:22And it's not something anyone can say they own.
01:20:36In 1990, the U.S. government attempted to describe organic standards.
01:20:42After years of formulating the regulation, in 1997, it was revealed that the standards would
01:20:48allow irradiation, sewage sludge, and genetically modified organisms.
01:20:54The government received one of the largest consumer protests in history.
01:20:59Two hundred and seventy-five thousand citizens wrote to the USDA, outraged by this, and demanded
01:21:05that organic standards be kept pure.
01:21:08The consumers prevailed.
01:21:12The underpinnings of my conversion to organics are not so much the economic point, it's the
01:21:17health point.
01:21:18To protect my health, protect my family's health, and my neighbour's.
01:21:23Because if I'm the steward of my own land, that also means I'm responsible for what's happening
01:21:28outside of my little parameters, my fence line.
01:21:32Our Saskatchewan Organic Directorate has taken this position that organic farming is a real
01:21:38alternative to the farm crisis.
01:21:43There has been a revolution in genetic engineering, but there has also been a counter-revolution.
01:21:49People are returning to buying fresh produce grown by local farmers.
01:22:11Organic farming, farmers markets, and community supported agriculture are only three of the
01:22:17many alternatives to the industrialized food model.
01:22:23South Dakota and Nebraska, along with eight other states, have passed constitutional amendments,
01:22:30or state legislation, that ban non-family-owned farming.
01:22:34When the corporation said, Nebraskans don't have the authority to ban we corporate persons
01:22:39from owning farmland, the Nebraska Supreme Court said, the Nebraskans can put whatever they
01:22:44want in their constitution.
01:22:45This is their fundamental right, it's the essence of the American democratic system.
01:22:50The consumer is still king.
01:22:53And the problem is that consumers can't act unless they have adequate information.
01:22:57So one of the things that we can all do is to get as much information as we can, to
01:23:02get that information into the hands of the public, into the hands of consumers, so that
01:23:06consumers can continue to exercise their choice.
01:23:10Because the food system is fluid, it can change quickly based on the opinions of the public.
01:23:17But if genetically modified food is not labeled, how are consumers able to exercise their rights?
01:23:25The choices we make at the supermarket determine the future of food.
01:23:33Food is one of the most intimate things we do.
01:23:37And if we don't have any choices about that, I think that's a very troubling scenario.
01:23:44There are large groups of people in other countries that have never bought into the American model
01:23:52of chemical-intensive, large-scale agriculture.
01:23:55And they certainly have not bought into the notion that the efficiencies that one gains by
01:24:02having two airline manufacturers in the world, or four automakers, or two makers of software,
01:24:10they believe that whatever gains you might make in efficiency are lost because you lose diversity.
01:24:16Whether there's going to be any serious change or challenge to the bulk of the way that agricultural land
01:24:24gets managed and farm businesses are organized, I think that's an open question.
01:24:29And frankly, I don't think it will happen unless the American public and farmers themselves sort of stand up and
01:24:37say,
01:24:38wait a minute, we just don't want to go any further down this road, and we are a government of
01:24:44the people, for the people, and by the people,
01:24:46and hey, we're the people, we don't want to go there.
01:24:49So are we, so we'll have to go there?
01:24:55And I'll see you there.
01:24:59Let's go there.
01:25:00Let's go there.
01:25:02And I'm going there.
01:25:04Bye-bye.
01:25:04And I'll see you there.
01:25:15I'll see you there.
01:25:16Bye-bye.
01:25:17Bye-bye.
01:25:17Bye-bye.
01:26:04It's up to you.