Bashing Bayer in Britain!
The Continuing Struggle Against Biotechnology 

NORA LUDD / Earth First! Eostar March-April 1mar04

"The campaign against genetic engineering in Europe is the greatest block to global economic liberalization in existence."
-1999 US TREASURY REPORT TO THE SENATE

From the Americas to Australia, Brazil to Britain, Canada to Croatia, India to Italy, resistance to genetic engineering has been widespread and militant. The tactics used have been the tactics of the rebellious throughout history: crop trashing, destruction of machinery, arson, blockading and street demonstrations. There has also been the harassment of those that control the technology, be it through visits to their homes, phone calls, emails or the disruption and occupation of their corporate offices.

The first outdoor genetically modified (GM) test crop was planted in Brentwood, California, one day in April 1987. All 2,000 plants were destroyed by Earth First!ers the very next night. More than 16 years later, the global struggle continues as fierce and vibrant as ever, and it shows no signs of abating. 

In Britain, strong direct action resistance, together with a huge amount of public support, has kept GM crops stuck in the research-and-development phase. Bayer CropScience is at the forefront of a push by biotechnology companies to move forward and get certain GM crops approved for commercial growing. Until recently, Bayer owned nine of the 11 seed varieties under consideration for commercial use in Britain. At the end of December, it dropped six of these varieties, blaming the "significant actions of a criminal minority" for playing a part in its decision.

Bayer is a huge German-owned pharmaceutical and pesticide corporation. Historically, it was responsible for the trademarking of heroin (sold as cough medicine) and was part of the German chemicals conglomerate IG Farben, which made Zyklon B—the gas used in Nazi death chambers. Recently, Bayer bought Aventis CropScience, the company responsible for many of the GM field trials in Britain. In doing so, Bayer turned itself into a big GM company, and hence it is now the number one target for anti-biotech activities.

Launched at last year's UK Earth First! Summer Gathering, the campaign to force Bayer CropScience out of the GM crop market has become increasingly effective. Since Au-gust, there have been both night and daytime office visits and occupations, glued locks, spraypainted messages, bricks through windows, electronic blockades and home visits. Following on from more than six years of militant anti-biotech activity in Britain, the Bayer campaign has successfully adapted to the new terrain of struggle that it finds itself in.

Previously, anti-biotech actions have focused on the destruction of small-scale GM crop trials. Despite the growing surveillance from police and private security companies, hundreds of locations have been destroyed by masked saboteurs during the last few years. Covertly organized, often done at night and sometimes involving up to 100 people, these actions were hugely successful. However, many of the trials have reached their scientific conclusion, with the ones that were destroyed omitted from the final official reports.

The current GM trials are "farm scale," so-called be-cause they involve areas of cultivation similar to an average, industrial-sized agricultural field. These fields are too large to be effectively destroyed, and many of the trials are now nearing completion anyway. As a result, the focus of British anti-GM activity has changed, and it is now directed at the corporations and individuals responsible rather than the crops themselves.

With this shift in direction, the Bayer campaign has learned lessons from the inspiring Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign. A significant part of SHAC's success is due to its strategic targeting. This has led people to focus not just on the target company—that's expecting action against it and often responds with secure premises and a well-developed public relations department—but diversifying and looking for weaker points in the corporate matrix.

In Britain, this way of identifying weak points has been utilized for the Bayer campaign—choosing targets that are connected to the company, but who often have no expectation of being hit and therefore usually have much lower security measures. This has meant that banks, insurance brokers, advertising agencies, food supply chains and other related elements of Bayer's essential support structure have been attacked. At times, this has led to interesting developments within the campaign. On some occasions, different parts of the same company have felt

that they are being targeted for some-thing that they are not doing and may not even agree with. Very useful situations have resulted from this approach, including some cases where some of the information used in the campaign has been supplied by employees of the companies targeted.

Another of the positive aspects of this campaign has been its emphasis on globalizing the struggle against Bayer. This has become even more important as Bayer has recently taken out a legal injunction against a number of groups, websites and individuals in Britain to attempt to prevent them from engaging in, or even re-porting on, anti-Bayer activities. Of course, it will not work. Indeed, similar injunctions used in past cases have even seemed to mobilize resistance rather than crush it.

Nevertheless, it is partly with this injunction in mind that globalizing the resistance to Bayer is now a priority for the campaign. Already there have been anti-Bayer actions in Italy, and more throughout Europe will hopefully follow soon. Any actions happening in North America would be welcomed and supported.

It is important to note that this growing campaign is not challenging Bayer and the rest of the GM corporate interests with morals and complicated arguments. Most people in Britain are opposed to GM crops, and yet the government and corporations are going ahead with them regardless. The time for discussion of the rights and wrongs of GM crops has passed. Intense and consistent economic sabotage and intimidation are what will make the commercialization of GM crops an unattractive option for Bayer, and so those are the tactics being chosen.

The war against GM crops will continue. Winning the battle against Bayer, as one battle in the war against biotechnology, is a necessary victory to prevent the economic machinery from destroying the last of the natural world. For all those who oppose the domestication and continuing enclosure of life by state and corporate interests, continue the resistance against biotech and join the battle against Bayer!

For more information on Bayer's dirty history, visit www.bayerhazard.com. To find Bayer and related targets in the US, including individuals, companies, offices and supporting institutions, visit www.bayercropscienceus.com. For more information on the anti-Bayer campaign in Britain and to report any actions, visit www.stopbayergm.org. And lastly, for longer reports and an analysis of the resistance to the biotech industry in Britain, visit www.eco-action.org/dod.

Nora Ludd feels much happier when making Bayer executives' lives miserable by visiting their homes at night. He lives in a muddy ditch in the north of England, but is currently on a yoga holiday in Outer Mongolia with his tortoise animal companion.

The Biotech Baking Brigade Strikes Back!

On January 21, Paul Rylott, top GM scientist at Bayer CropScience, delivered a stirring speech on how to manage consumer response to biotechnology. Rylott was attending a Food and Drink Federation-sponsored conference in London, "Threats and Risks in the Food Industry: Predicting and Managing Issues."

As he took his place in line for the buffet dinner, a polite call of "Mr. Rylott?" brought low lace to face with a stale, dumpstered chocolate fudge cake that was covered with sweaty, rotting whipped cream. The assaulting party shouted, "That's for GM!," and fled without arrest.

Some leaflets were given out to the surprised and immobilized crowd, and all those protesting left before the cops arrived.

Following the action, the Biotech Baking Brigade stated, "GM technology is one of the latest onslaughts of a bland and tedious industrial, technological society against the Earth. We are against monoculture and for biodiversity, against the domestication of people and land, and for the wild. There is no neutral ground: Everyone is called upon to choose their side. Whenever `they' strike—be they governments, corporations or greenwashing quangos—we will strike back. They have declared war on us and our planet: We will answer it."