{"id":1450,"date":"2014-02-03T21:14:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T20:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/gmo-the-biggest-food-con\/"},"modified":"2023-05-08T16:04:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T14:04:52","slug":"gmo-the-biggest-food-con-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/gmo-the-biggest-food-con-2\/","title":{"rendered":"GMO: The Biggest Food Con"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr Vandana Shiva – Common Dreams, 3 February 2014 | Source<\/a><\/p>\n

Pushing for genetically modified organisms is polluting our seed and food, our science and democracy.<\/p>\n

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
\nWhere knowledge is free\u2026”<\/em> \u2014Rabindranath Tagore<\/p>\n

Freedom of knowledge is freedom to think freely, without the influence of powerful interests. It is the freedom to develop one\u2019s understanding of an evolving reality in order to enhance the wellbeing of all.<\/p>\n

We, as a society, have become indifferent towards material pollution \u2014 growing mountains of garbage, polluted rivers, including the sacred Ganga and Yamuna that now resemble nalas (drains), and the polluted air we breathe. But there is a more serious and invisible pollution \u2014 one that affects our mind.<\/p>\n

The deepening brutality and frequency of violence against women is one symptom; a star-studded Saifai Mahostav while Muzaffarnagar riot victims freeze in the cold wave is another symptom.<\/p>\n

Similarly, pushing for genetically modified organisms is polluting our seed and food, our science and democracy. The freedom of knowledge and knowledge sovereignty is threatened by GMOs at multiple levels.<\/p>\n

First, knowledge is \u201cfree\u201d when it can be freely shared, when knowledge is an intellectual commons.<\/p>\n

GMOs have been deployed to privatise knowledge and seeds through Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), which include patents and copyrights. While on the one hand this is blocking public research on plant breeding, on the other it is denying farmers the right to save seeds and to share knowledge and continue the evolution of the seed. IPRs also deny the collective, cumulative innovation of indigenous cultures and promote biopiracy. For example, take the case of the neem patent taken by the US department of agriculture and multinational WR Grace. India won a 10-year-long battle at the European Patent Office (EPO) against a patent granted on an anti-fungal product, derived from neem. The EPO had granted the patent to the US department of agriculture and WR Grace in 1995, but the Indian government successfully argued that the medicinal neem tree is part of traditional Indian knowledge.<\/p>\n

Second, the paradigm of genetic reductionism and genetic determinism (the belief that genes, along with environmental conditions, determine morphological and behavioural phenotypes) \u2014 on which genetic engineering is based \u2014 is a violation of knowledge sovereignty. It is an artificial model of how life works, assuming genes to be \u201cmaster molecules\u201d giving direction to RNA (ribonucleic acid) and proteins.<\/p>\n

As geneticist Dr Mae Wan Ho said: \u201cInstead of the linear, one-way information flow envisaged in the central dogma from DNA to RNA to protein and \u2018downstream\u2019 biological function, there is intricate cross-talk between the organism and its environment at all levels, with feed-forward and feed-back cycles in the epigenetic and metabolic networks of molecular interactions that mark and change genes as the organism goes about its business of living\u2026 The organism is doing its own natural genetic modification with great finesse, a molecular dance of life that\u2019s necessary for survival. Unfortunately, genetic engineers do not know the steps or the rhythm and music of the dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowledge sovereignty in the science of life goes hand in hand with the awareness of the sovereignty and self organisation of living systems, from cells to organisms, to ecosystems, to the living planet. The third violation of knowledge sovereignty is the attack on independent scientists who undertake scientific enquiry and scientific investigations independent of corporate interests.<\/p>\n

The first example of a scientist being attacked was Dr Arpad Putzai, a Hungarian biochemist and nutritionist who had been asked by the UK government to study the safety of GMOs. In 1998, Dr Pusztai announced that the results of his research showed feeding genetically modified potatoes to rats had negative effects on their stomach lining and immune system.<\/p>\n

In spite of being a world expert on plant lectins, authoring 270 papers and three books on the subject, he was removed from his lab at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he had spent 36 years. A gag order was put on him preventing him from discussing his findings.<\/p>\n

More recently, a paper was published in 2012 in the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology by Dr Seralini of France, who had conducted a two-year study on GMO safety. When the journal was asked to retract the paper, the editors refused, saying it had been peer reviewed and evaluated. Monsanto then appointed its own biotechnology editor, Dr Goodman, who had the paper retracted.<\/p>\n

In India, two environment ministers who tried to carry out their work on biosafety as enshrined in the Rules for Genetically Engineered Organisms framed under the US Environmental Protection Agency, have been sacrificed to try and make way for GMOs. India\u2019s new environment minister Veerappa Moily has indicated he will push to overturn the blockage on GMO crops instituted by former ministers.<\/p>\n

Mr Moily\u2019s support is expected to pave the way for the government to submit an affidavit in the Supreme Court acquiescing to field trials of GM food crops on a conditional basis. This is an attempt to subvert the technical expert committee set up by the Supreme Court, which has called for a moratorium on field trials for 10 years while a robust biosafety infrastructure for assessment and regulation is created.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr Vandana Shiva – Common Dreams, 3 February 2014 | Source Pushing for genetically modified organisms is polluting our seed and food, our science and democracy. “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free\u2026” \u2014Rabindranath Tagore Freedom of knowledge is freedom to think freely, without the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[345,50],"tags":[102,88,83],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","category-news","tag-gmos","tag-india","tag-vandana-shiva","thematic_area-seed-freedom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/900-cary-gillam-17-June.jpg","wpml_translations":[{"language_code":"en","post_id":1450,"original":true}],"custom_fields":{"_fgj2wp_old_id":["493"],"_edit_lock":["1546196268:2"],"_edit_last":["2"],"_thumbnail_id":["4542"],"wpl_sidebar_option":["on"],"wpl_featured_image_post":["on"],"wpl_share_buttons":["on"],"_wpml_media_duplicate":["1"],"_wpml_media_featured":["1"],"_wpml_media_has_media":["1"],"_alp_processed":["1552411835"],"_wp_old_slug":["gmo-the-biggest-food-con"]},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9KkNM-no","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4589,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/4589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/navdanyainternational.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}