Advocates of genetically-engineered food often suggest “feeding the world” is the moral justification for embracing GE seed, but scientist Herman Brockman contends “feeding the world” is more marketing gimmick than science.

Brockman, a distinguished emeritus professor of genetics at Illinois State University, presented a 15-point polemic recently analyzing GE food at a Food Security Forum hosted by First Mennonite Church of Champaign-Urbana. Even with 870 million people worldwide suffering from hunger and malnourishment, GE food is not the answer, Brockman said.

CUTLINE: Herman Brockman, distinguished emeritus professor of genetics at Illinois State University, researches and writes about organic farming and the false claims made about genetically-engineered seed.

GE food, also referred to as transgenic because genes from one species are inserted into another, was first marketed with Bt corn in the 1990s. The biotechnology industry, including Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences and DuPont/Pioneer, promotes GE crops as having higher yields, lower reliance on synthetic pesticides and drought tolerance. Half the world’s seed supply is now controlled by these corporations but unlike most technological innovations that result in declining prices, the cost of GE seed is skyrocketing. About 80 percent of the U.S. corn market is now GE seed and about 70 percent of the country’s soybean market is GE. Non-GE seed is rapidly becoming less available.

On every one of Brockman’s 15 criteria, GE seed fails to measure up.

Far more important than GE food to feed the world, Brockman suggests, is eliminating waste. Currently, about one-third of all food is wasted.

CUTLINE: Herman Brockman, distinguished emeritus professor of genetics at Illinois State University, checks on his Black Angus on a recent, rainy afternoon on his farm near Eureka.

Next step toward global food security is access to family planning, he said.

GE biotechnology exploits the Earth’s finite resources, Brockman said. Diverse, small scale “peasant farms” work with natural resources and are sustainable.

“Sustainable, organic agriculture can continue indefinitely,” he said. “The present (industrial) agriculture is not sustainable. It’s too toxic, too dependent on fossil fuels and destructive of the natural systems and genetic diversity.”

Diverse, small scale farming without GE seeds has been practiced for thousands of years and is the most efficient form of agriculture. Peasant farmers grow 70 percent of the world’s food supply and use less than 30 percent of the world’s agricultural resources. Contrast that with industrial farming which produces just 30 percent of the world’s food but uses 70 percent of the world’s agricultural resources.

Brockman pointed to the dichotomy between actual agricultural production in this country and the science of nutrition, a contrast clearly evident in a comparison of the Harvard School of Public Health “Healthy Eating Plate” versus the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “My Plate.” Brockman said actual ag production is reflective of politics and ethanol, not science and nutrition.

“When you drive through Illinois, are half the fields in fruit and vegetables, one quarter in whole grains and one quarter in protein production with no processed food?” Brockman asked. “No, and 90 percent of the corn that is grown goes to ethanol and livestock with much of the remaining 10 percent going to high fructose corn syrup.”

Rather than looking at the profit-making biotechnology industry’s GE seeds to combat food insecurity, Brockman suggests looking at food waste, depletion of resources, mal-distribution of income and wealth, global climate change and the extreme power of the agriculture-industrial complex.

Do not buy into the corporate lexicon that contrasts “organic farming” with “conventional farming,” he said. True conventional farming dates back thousands of years and includes organic farming, agro-ecology, green agriculture and conservation agriculture. Modern industrial farming should accurately be called chemical farming and has been practiced only since the 1940s, he said.

True conventional farming requires less land, fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides than industrial farming. It requires more labor, relies on greater plant diversity and commonly uses buffers, fence rows and margins not used in the mono-crop production of industrial farming. The health of the soil is a critical focus of conventional farming versus the soil-killing practices of industrial farming, Brockman said.

Also lost in the conversion from conventional farming to industrial farming is the loss of ancestral wisdom and human communities. With chemical farming, information comes from corporations geared toward sales and marketing. Conventional, organic production is based on the shared wisdom and knowledge of ancestors, neighbors and communities.

Following his presentation, Brockman said, “With the adoption of industrial agriculture after World War II, farms became larger and small farms declined. The rural population was not there to support stores. Small farm towns were destroyed, and the whole social fabric of communities was destroyed. Farmers were driven from the land, and that oral tradition was gone.”

Brockman was born in 1934 in the same room where father was born in a farmhouse in Iroquois County east of Peoria. He earned a Ph.D. in genetics and taught for 35 years at ISU. He studies and writes about organic farming, GE seed and big industrial farms. He also works daily with three of his children on their organic farms, sometimes coaxing his “fussy cows” to finish their big round bales of hay before serving them another.

Brockman testified in favor of labeling GE food at one of three public hearings convened by Illinois Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria. Koehler’s legislation, SB 1666, has not been called for a vote. A referendum calling for labeling GE food (Proposition 37) failed last year in California (53 percent to 47 percent) after Monsanto and other opponents spent more than $45 million to defeat the measure. About $5.5 million was raised in support of Prop 37. Washington State residents are preparing to vote on a ballot initiative (I-522) calling for labeling and again, corporations are spending millions to defeat the measure. In the U.S. Congress, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) have introduced legislation calling for labeling GE food nationwide.

“Advocates of transgenic seed like to say it has been proven safe. That’s not true,” Brockman said. “There is no scientific consensus it’s safe.”

Box:

The League of Women Voters of Greater Peoria is hosting a public meeting starting at 10:15 a.m. Nov. 9 at the North Branch, Peoria Public Library, on Sen. Dave Koehler’s legislation calling for mandatory labeling of GE food.

Speaking in support of the legislation will be David Bishop, organic farmer and president of the governing board of the Illinois Organic Growers Association, and Jessica Fujan, Midwest organizer, Food & Water Watch.

Speaking in opposition will be Leon Corzine, farmer and member of the Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture, USDA, and Stephen Moose, professor, department of crop sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.