Earth Talk: Neo-Slavery: The Modern Plantation

The wealth of the modern system was built on slavery - even the White House, the official residence of the President of the United States, was built with slave labor.

Too few Americans realize that slaves not only built the South but also created the wealth of the North, too. Railroad giant CSX used slaves to lay railroads, and tobacco companies used slaves to harvest crops. Slave labor was used to haul salt and coal, and Ivy League universities such as Brown, Harvard, and Yale built their endowments using money from slavery profits. The modern capitalist system could not have developed if it weren't for the forced labor of people of color, and all of the corporate giants have benefited from slavery.

While the ball-and-chain days of slavery are no longer legal in this country, we are still slaves to this system, as most of us are forced to work 40+ hours a week just to cover our basic food, clothes, and shelter needs, with nothing left over to develop our own businesses or progress economically. The small businesses that we do own are minuscule compared to the long-standing corporations that benefited from slavery, and as we continue to fall into deep wells of debt and work, those controlling the economy only get richer and more powerful.

With the rise of globalization, these companies are expanding their network of neo-slavery to other countries by outsourcing and moving production to less-developed areas of the world. Once there, the corporations lure the locals with attractive wages (which are much less than one would be making in this country), trapping them into being a workforce for a foreign company rather than entrepreneurs or participants in the local modes of production (and thus preventing them from helping the development of their own country). Whether it is sewing clothes, making toys, answering customer service calls, or manufacturing shoes, the capitalistic giants rule the lives of not only Americans but people in other countries as well. Now, with genetically modified foods being pushed heavily into worldwide markets, the agricultural giants are bringing back the cotton plantations, only now they are modernized.

THE NEW SLAVEMASTER

Many agricultural crops are being genetically engineered.

US farmers produce GM corn, soybeans, cotton, canola, squash, and papaya. Other genetically engineered products are being developed quickly by agricultural/chemical giants Aventis, Monsanto, Syngenta, and Du Pont, and these companies are putting large amounts of money into their products. These companies are very powerful and have the means to ensure their agenda of overtaking agriculture becomes a reality. In 2004, nine US states used GM corn varieties on over 30% of their fields - 79% of South Dakota's corn yield was genetically modified! In that same year, GM soybeans accounted for over 70% of the crop for the 14 states that used the technology. Five of the seven US states producing GM cotton reported over 90% of their production was genetically modified. But the expansion of genetically modified crops does not stop at the US borders - Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, China, South Africa, Mexico, India, Germany, and the Philippines are all producing GM foods, along with others.

Farmers in these countries seem to have embraced the idea of GM foods and the so-called benefits they provide. While the social, safety, and environmental issues of GM organisms as a whole was discussed in a previous issue of The Rising Firefly, one must wonder whether these farmers realize the trap into which they have been lured.

Because GM agricultural products are protected under patent laws, not only are the seeds more expensive, but farmers also find themselves using more expensive and harsher chemicals on their crops. Even worse, extra fees are put upon them for the use of the patented technology, and most farmers are required under a use contract to purchase new seeds from the giant agricultural suppliers every year rather than saving seeds from one year's yield to replant the next year (and in some technologies, seeds are rendered sterile and will not grow if replanted)!

While this may seem like a minute detail, this issue is fundamentally one of control, power, and money and ensures the domination of the giant agricultural companies first over the farmers that use their seeds and also over the food supply as a whole.

Many countries are very skeptical of GM foods, particularly European countries and those who export to Europe. Less wealthy countries, such as those in Africa, are not only concerned over the safety of these products and the social and environmental impacts they have but also about their export possibility.

Europe has banned most GM foods from coming into their food supply, so any country wishing to utilize European markets must consider the impacts using GM technology will have on their export bottom line. Egypt has succumbed to GM propaganda and has begun producing GM cotton, while other African nations flatly refuse GM foods, even by way of aid. Zambia, faced with starvation, refused to admit even milled grains from the USA due to the possibility of these grains being the genetically modified variety.

"Simply because my people are hungry, that is no justification to give them poison, to give them food that is intrinsically dangerous to their health," said Levy Mwanawasa, President of Zambia. Monsanto and other biotechnology companies are not relenting, and they are now introducing biotechnology in Africa (and other places of people of color) not with GM corn, soy, or other food products, but by way of cotton. Yes, the cotton plantation is back, and the slavemaster is not an individual, but rather a giant international agricultural company. 

PLANTATIONS IN ITOURE

It is ironic that Egypt is among the first African nations to embrace this new technology, as it is the wisdom and knowledge of the Nile Valley that brought humanity out of barbarism and corruption. Egyptian advocates of GM foods have called for the commercial production of GM cotton and corn by the year 2006. Hanaiya Al Itriby, director of the Agricultural Genetic Engineering Research Institute in Egypt, said "Cotton is a very safe product to start with because the areas in which cotton is grown are restricted to certain varieties, so each variety is segregated." While cotton seed oil from genetically modified plants qualifies as a GM product, cotton fibers themselves do not contain genetic material that would be banned from European markets, especially when transformed into yarns and fabric. Fewer people are resistant to wearing GM products than eating them. 

This idea is exactly what the biotechnology companies are promoting. Their agenda is to get into resistant countries with cotton, then expand to corn, soy, and other GM products. Their new African growers must pay a royalty to Monsanto for using their patented seeds, and European citizens are wise to the agenda of the biotechnology companies; many accuse US Agribusiness of hitting third-world countries with higher seed costs, specialized pesticides, and fertilizers that are designed for their GM seeds, and royalty fees while tightening their grip on the control over the food supply (and, thus, human existence) of the future.

WEST AFRICAN

BIOTECHNOLOGY INVASION

The US biotechnology companies are urgently pressing to get GM crops into West Africa, and, like in Egypt, they are starting with cotton. "Bt cotton is the biotech industry's trojan horse for bringing patented GM crops into West Africa," said Jeanne Zoundjihkpon of GRAN in Benin, West Africa. "The infrastructure for cotton is well-established and they want to take advantage of this. But cotton is a critical crop for the region... the technologies they are bringing in offer nothing to farmers but greater dependence on foreign companies." 

Burkina Faso imported two varieties of Bt cotton in 2003, a GM crop that contains anti-bollworm genes from certain bacillus, before the country adopted any biosafety laws. Field trials are now underway in Burkina. Mali is also growing Bt cotton, which began in 2004. These two countries have no way to guarantee that this GE cotton will not contaminate the conventional cotton plants. Cotton is Mali's number one export, and many rural families rely on its production. "Meanwhile, the US government is promising millions of dollars to Mali if it chooses GE technology," said Zoundjihkpon.

It is interesting that Burkina Faso and Mali were the selected countries in West Africa for GM cotton introduction. As history tells us, it is these same countries from which indigenous people were stolen and brought to the USA in the early days of slavery. Now these areas are being targeted again, and people are unknowingly being turned into neo-slaves by the biotechnology companies.

GE COTTON'S FAILURES

Bt cotton is engineered to control the bollworm, cotton's natural enemy. Last year, China planted about 1.5 million acres of the crop (35% of the total cotton planted) and studied it intensely. Chinese scientists found that the populations of pests other than the bollworm increased in Bt cotton fields, replacing the bollworm as the crop's primary pests. Further testing showed that the cotton bollworm will develop a resistance to the GM cotton in as little as eight to ten years. In 1996, Bt cotton failed to control the bollworms it was engineered to fight in Australia and US. In 1997, Bt cotton farmers in Arizona reported incomes less than for conventional cotton production - Bt cotton produced lower yields, and when coupled with user fees, growth chemicals, and the need to harvest twice, the farmers found the GM cotton to be more problematic than natural cotton.

Australian farmers using Ingard Bt cotton found the results to be variable, and many had to use insecticides on the plants, just as they had for the non-GM varieties. India refused to renew licenses for Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh state in 2003 because the plants were ineffective in controlling the pests they were engineered to fight.

GM cotton was introduced in Indonesia, but Monsanto withdrew after the economic failure of the crop. South Africa, which grows GM cotton, is now experiencing deeper debt than before.

GE COTTON'S SEVERE RISKS

Scientists from the UK Government have now issued a warning that the use of Monsanto's GM cotton could make gonorrhea untreatable. They warn us that because the gene "aad", which is used in both Bollgard and Roundup Ready GM cottons, confers resistance to streptomycin and spectinomycin, antibiotics used to treat gonorrhea. They argue that the gonorrhea bacteria could acquire the gene from GM plant materials during infection of the mouth or small intestine or respiratory tract, or from other bacteria in the environment. Because 60% of the cotton harvest consists of cotton seed, cotton seed oil that is extracted for human consumption, this is one warning that should not be ignored.

Bt toxins are the product of a number of genes, which differ between Bt varieties. Bt toxin Cry 9 has been found to be allergenic in test animals and was approved only for animal feed, but contaminated com and com products that were destined for the human food chain.

Another widely used Bt toxin has been shown to damage the ileum (the final part of the small intestine) in mammals, which can produce fecal incontinence and flu-like digestive upsets. Toxic compounds used on GM cotton, such as glyphosate (RoundUp) and Bromoxynil have been found to have "serious concerns about developmental risks to infants and children" by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Those GE cotton fields that were effective in controlling the bollworm experienced a disturbance in the local ecosystem. Other pest populations were out of control, causing damage to the delicate ecosystem balance. This is not a phenomenon that can be taken lightly, as any small change in the ecosystem is likely to have large-scale damaging effects in the long run. The use of GE cotton forces farmers to be dependent on a single seed supplier. It involves the purchase of both the seed and herbicide from the same company and the re-purchase of seeds every year rather than saving seeds from one year to plant the next year like in traditional farming. Farmers must also pay fees to seed suppliers for using their patented products. This dependence on an outside (and often foreign) company rather than on oneself is dangerous and is, ultimately, slavery!

We must not be fooled by the slick propaganda and scientific rhetoric the agricultural biochemical companies push into our minds. Biotechnology is not the answer to a so-called "food shortage" problem, nor is it the answer to curing diseases or helping the environment. These huge companies are tampering with nature by introducing foreign genes into a plant or animal. They are challenging nature, and one thing is certain - nature always wins. In the meantime, Monsanto and others are creating new slaves who don't even realize they have been captured, new slave plantations all over the world, and are paving the way to controlling the world's food supply. We cannot be fooked any longer - our survival as a species depends on out intelligence and courage to stand up to these new slave masters.