GMO's & High-Tech Feudalism

national | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Monday September 24, 2007 22:23 by Oisín Ó Conail - Irish Farmers' Association

It's not just the health issues - it's the political-economy

Much of debate about Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMO's) focuses on arguing about possible health issues; but are there other problems associated with patenting food-supplies, such as political and economic control?

As an Irish farmer (and member of the IFA), I would like to strongly encourage readers to continue to act against GMO's becoming State-sanctioned here.

This is not simply about possible health effects down the road; the entire patenting system in this area is becoming little more than a form of transnational protectionism in favour of corporate, oligopolistic cartels.

I am not against technology, nor against entrepreneurs or companies reaping a reward for introducing worthwhile innovations. However, as both a farmer and a businessman, I severely question the motives, methods and results of current "innovation" by biotech and agribusiness companies. These seem to have more to do with "locking in" agricultural producers (e.g. farmers) into what economists would call "path dependency" - a production system determined by previous choices; in this case, by choices of seed, chemical supplies and physical and financial capital investment (often promoted forcefully by State and institutional actors). And these choices are becoming increasingly rigged; for example, we are not even allowed to save seed - even if the variety is a common heritage belonging to no one!

This has less to do with offering choice, and more to do with making it difficult for producers to operate outside of the increasingly vertically-integrated corporate giants of food production world-wide. And I am not against "bigness" in itself; but the term "economies of scale" has become a cliché - it is not an iron law, only a variable tendency; if "bigness" is effectively subsidised by Single-Farm payments that are almost entirely passed-on to pay for patented, licensed and path-dependent (or petroleum-based) inputs, it is more likely that we are witnessing state-protected diseconomies of scale. This is not even counting socially- (i.e. tax-) funded transportation infrastructure such as motorways which enable lower average costs for "scaled up" distribution networks.

But if corporate giants are operating in a fixed market (e.g. no competing traditional varieties of seed allowed to be saved and sold), and legally empowered to bully and threaten anyone whose seed stock is invaded - even by natural processes! - by patented genetic material, this cannot be regarded as an open market; this instead is arguably just high-tech feudalism.

Aside from health issues, aside from political economy: at a time of ballooning debt, climate change, and at the mid-point of global oil production, is this really wise? To effectively promote decreasing diversity in food production techniques, against long-established and sturdy strains, and in favour of high-bred and engineered varieties that cannot survive in the wild without intense inputs of cartelised seed, petrochemicals, and borrowed capital?