Anti-GMOs 'Food Without Poison' Caravan

Manolo B. Jara / Manila Times 4dec00

ON NOV. 29, at least 15 rural-based organizations, led by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP or Farmers’ Movement of the Philippines) started a two-day caravan to protest the government’s continued promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), particularly in agriculture.

Organizers said the caravan took them to Northern and Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog and Bicol to raise awareness among farmers of the potential dangers posed by GMOs. The caravan was also held in conjunction with similar protest activities launched by anti-GMO groups in India, Bangladesh, Japan and Korea.

With the theme, “Food Without Poison,” the protest highlighted the battle between the pros and the antis to win the hearts and minds of farmers regarding biotechnology. It is a battle which is intense and often bitter, pitting the government against a formidable array of local NGOs which receive support from anti-GMO groups abroad.

The problem, according to biotech supporters, is that the anti-GMO advocates in the Philippines persistently refuse to publicly detail the sources of their foreign funding. In this way, they explain, majority of the people can assess the independence or prejudices of those who seem, at times, to be irrationally opposed to agricultural progress.

Significantly, the caravan was also launched on the same day that the Department of Agriculture held its last of a series of biotechnology consultations with concerned groups nationwide. The consultations started in Davao City, then moved to Cebu City and Baguio City and eventually ended in Metro Manila.

What this means is that the anti-GMOs are mobilizing their forces to fight a government equally determined to pursue a program which it believes will help tremendously in attaining food security as well as in improving the lives of millions of impoverished farmers in the countryside.

While KMP is seen as leading the anti-GMO campaign, biotech supporters believe that a seemingly more formidable adversary is working behind the scenes, orchestrating the moves and countermoves to pursue their cause. They all agree that SEARICE or the Southeast Asia Regional Institute for Community Education is a major force to contend with in the campaign to promote biotechnology nationwide.

The hand of SEARICE, they say, can be perceived from the anti-GMO resolutions and similar measures being passed around in the local level—the barangays and the towns in the rural areas where the battle is considered most intense.

As any other NGO, SEARICE receives funding from a variety of donors worldwide. These include the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Development Fund of Norway, World Wide Fund for Nature and the Catholic Relief Services.

There is also additional evidence suggesting that SEARICE receives financial support from leftist labor and farmer groups in South Africa as well as exiled elements of the (Joma) Sison wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines in the Netherlands. Agriculture research specialists who routinely observe the GMO debate fear the destabilization goals has crept into the hardline biotech positions of the anti-GMO forces operating in the country.

Another big funding donor of SEARICE is GRAIN, or the Genetic Resources Action International Network based in Barcelona, Spain. GRAIN is described as an extremist group when it comes to its views on genetic engineering. It was established mainly to fight the spread of genetically engineered plant varieties which it perceives to be a threat to the environment.

Together with another international group, called Rural Advancement Fund International (RAFI), GRAIN believes that technology cannot be neutral. They insist that there is always an ideology behind the technology. And when it comes to genetic engineering, the ideology of capitalist exploitation is behind the effort. An example often cited is GRAIN’s campaign against the high-yielding rice varieties that were developed—and continue to be developed—by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based in Los Baños, Laguna.

SEARICE also receives funding from the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Philippines. The mother organization is PAN-North America and its immediate higher group is PAN-Asia-Pacific. Established in 1996, PAN-Philippines says its main objectives are: to prevent or minimize the adverse impact of pesticides on the health and the environment; to establish a resource file on pesticide use; and to set up a community-based monitoring system on pesticide use and their effects in the Philippines.

But what is surprising is that anti-GMO forces refuse to explain or reconcile their opposition to pesticides with the proven health benefits of GMO crops like Bt corn. During field trials in General Santos City in Mindanao, Bt corn has shown that farmers could dramatically increase their yields while reducing their heavy dependence on harmful chemical pesticides.

To skeptics of the anti-GMO movement, this glaring contradiction underscores a belief that opposition to biotechnology has far less to do with science or reasoned arguments than the vintage leftist tradition of reactionary attitudes to anything advocated by government or the business community.