Monsanto Talks in Crisis
The Big Issue, 17-23 January 2000
Monsanto's attempts to hold discussions with anti-GM campaign groups look set to collapse at the end of the month, before detailed talks even begin.
The proposed "National Stakeholder" dialogue on genetic engineering, which is being funded by Monsanto and facilitated by the London-based Environment Council, is in serious difficulty because prominent campaign groups have withdrawn from the process.
In November last year, the Big Issue revealed how multinationals are now using dialogue as a new form of public relations. Campaigners from GenetiX Snowball, which dismissed the initiative as a "cynical PR exercise" circulated the Big Issue article with a letter outlining their concerns. Some 16 groups subsequently withdrew from the process.
"Monsanto's behaviour has been so appalling to-date with the introduction of GMOs, that without a Moratorium on GMO's, I doubt there is any sincerity in their offer", says Andrew Wood, the group's spokesperson.
"Everyone is suspicious its just a PR ploy", says Dr Sue Mayer, from GeneWatch. "Until you have got a Moratorium on commercial use and patenting, you cannot really have any confidence in this process, because it doesn't really mean anything. It's the wrong discussion. People want to talk about food and sustainable agriculture, not GMOs".
Charlie Kronick from Greenpeace adds: "The only way you could have sensible dialogue is if they stop releasing GMO's into the environment".
However, Mhairi Dunlop from the Environment Council defended its involvement in the process: "It was excellent that The Big Issue highlighted the fact that companies can use stakeholder dialogue as greenwash, because they do. However we vet the companies we work with rigorously to make sure they are not using it as greenwash, or they are not going to manipulate the agenda."
Unsurprisingly, Monsanto is still pushing for the process to continue: "In our view, there's no point in sitting either side of the fence, and the whole debate about GM crops being polarised", said press spokesperson, Alex Woolfall.
The Environment Council will decide at the end of the month whether the process will continue. However with influential groups like the Cornerhouse, the Food Commission, Friends of the Earth, GeneWatch UK, Genetic Concern, the GE Alliance, GenetiX Forum, Greenpeace, The Pesticides Trust, The Vegetarian Society, and the Women's Environment Network, amongst those abstaining from the process, its seems difficult to see how it can continue.
"Without the big players, it becomes non-viable," says Dunlop.
Andy Rowell
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