A  Study Week to be held at the Vatican in May 2009 entitled ‘Transgenic Plants for Food Security in the Context of Development’ is apparently a public relations exercise by biotech companies.

A tactic to receive Vatican endorsement for Genetically Modified Organism (GMOs) failed on 24 September 2004 when the US Embassy to the Holy See and the Pontifical Academy of Science co-hosted an event but the effort has re-emerged. The biotech companies see the Vatican as a target to be ‘white-anted’, this time during the Study Week to destroy processes of regulations for the breeding, testing and labelling of transgenic foods.

In an Introduction to the booklet outlining the topics and speakers for the Study Week, Prof. Ingo Potrykus, Chairman of the Swiss based Humanitarian Golden Rice Board and Network, stated, ‘Changing societal attitudes, including the regulatory processes involved, is extremely important if we are to save biotechnology’. This statement is both blatant and alarming.

Prof. Potrykus returns several times to the topic of dismantling the regulatory system for transgenic food production and consumption. He blames it for impeding the spread of potential benefits to be gained from adopting biotechnology in agriculture. He judges regulation processes to be bureaucratic and unwarranted by science, and introduces a new phrase in the attack on regulations - driven by ‘extreme precaution’.

 Prof. Potrykus admits that this particular Study Week is not a standard ‘science’ meeting. He claims that opposition to biotechnology in agriculture is usually ideological, however, it is obvious from his introduction that the Study Week is ideologically biased towards advancing the dominance of agriculture by Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). This Study Week will not be an unbiased assessment of health and bio-diversity aspects of GMOs, or sustainability of agricultural systems.

The pro-GM line up of speakers at the Study Week is revealing. It appears that every speaker is a proponent of GM crops, sometimes militantly so, as is the case of Dr. Peter Raven and Dr. C.S. Prakesh.

In a supposedly Catholic context, the absence from the Study Week of long time Catholic  commentators on the dangers inherent in GM foods is of note. Also absent are representatives from peak Catholic bodies  like Caritas International, and Catholic development agencies, such as CAFOD in Britain.

As always in this type of public relations, the plight of the poor and hungry is trotted out as the major concern of the Study Week and Biotech industry. This is a deception. The charter of every biotech company demands that its first task is to make a profit for shareholders, Biotech company executives are not friends of the poor.

Sadly, the Study Week booklet opens with a photo of Pope Benedict XVI with arms out stretched to the poor, seeming to embrace GM. However, even Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, has changed his previous stance on the possible benefits of GMOs. He said that responsibility for the world food crisis is in the hands of unscrupulous people who focus only on profit and certainly not on the well-being of all people (L’Osservatore Romano 1 Jan 2009).

Many farmers and environmentalists in Australia have campaigned for years on economic and labelling issues to do with the commercialisation of GM crops. Wanting the truth, they have supported comparative studies proposed by the Western Australian  Government but rejected by the biotech companies. They have asked for public assessment of the supposed scientific evidence presented by the biotech companies to government regulatory authorities. Now pro-GM voices are ducking for cover in the light of the outcomes of National Variety Trials showing that GM canola yields less than non-GM counterparts (Stock and Land 22 Jan. 2009). Sadly, these campaigners have received little support from the Churches. The Columban DVD Unjust Genes has been a lonely voice.

Real solutions to sustainable development and feeding the world in a time of declining oil production and rapid climate change do exist. For example, in 2008 the United Nation agencies United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published ‘Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa’. The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) in April 2008 published  similar alternatives.

Fr Charles Rue is the Coordinator of Columban Justice Peace Integrity and Creation (JPIC) charlesrue@columban.org.au

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/2008/booklet_transgenic_09.pdf