So you thought the uk debate was dead? Well think again, as Monsanto’s chief tells Clive Beddall
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth et al would have everyone believe there’s not a cat’s hope in hell that GMOs will hold a stake on British supermarket shelves, especially now that US GM pioneer Monsanto has pulled out of the European seed cereal business and closed a research centre near Cambridge.
Yet at Monsanto’s HQ in St Louis, scientists are quietly confident that the vilified food science will eventually spread worldwide, as The Grocer discovered during an exclusive interview with Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, last week.
Speak to any Monsanto executive, and you’ll soon be inundated with statistics. Did you know, for instance, that: 18 nations plant biotech crops, and the 2003 acreage grew by 15% over the previous year; or that seven million farmers worldwide grew GM last year, six million of them in developing countries; how about the fact that half the world’s population live in countries that grew the crops during 2003; and 90% of the massive US soya bean crop this year will be biotech.
In the UK, these are the sort of statistics that strike fear into the heart. But in the US, they are used to supporting the company’s case. In truth, many in the US food and farming community are amazed that UK protestors have created lingering, nagging doubt in the minds of millions of consumers. As one pro-GM scientist put it to me: “Britain has become the islands of introspection on this issue.”
Typical of the opinions expressed in the US are those of prominent soya bean and corn farmer Greg Guenther, a former national director of the US Corn Growers’ Association. Standing in a cornfield in his 850 acres in Belleville, Illinois, he says: “Prince Charles, by opposing genetic modification, has not done his country any favours.
“My message to EU agriculturalists is that if you all want to go 100% organic, instead of taking up GM, be my guest. We will pick up the markets that you miss, but don’t come crying to us when you lose money. US farmers are laughing at the way people across the pond are being manipulated by Greenpeace. Genetic modification gives us a technological advantage in world commodity markets.”
Grant, who has just returned from a tour of several European states, including the UK, is just as confident the sceptics will eventually be won over.
Recalling The Grocer’s visit to St Louis in 2000, he says: “Four years ago, the GM debate was transatlantic. But it has been broadened considerably in recent times to become a global discussion.”
He feels encouraged that a large chunk of GM’s growth in recent years has come from Asia, notably India, China, Indonesia and the Philippines, where more small farmers and low input agriculture have embraced the technology.
Globally, the first GM soya beans went into the ground in 1996, and now the total planted is over half a billion acres. Yet, argues Grant: “Despite that growth, the sky has not fallen in on GM worldwide. None of the terrible things that were predicted for consumers who ate GM food have occurred. And in the US it is estimated that £50m worth of pesticides were not needed last year, as GM plantings spread. More and more North American farmers are embracing the technology because they can see that it works.”
Grant believes the global debate on GM has moved from theory to delivery. After extolling the benefits of GMOs in the agronomic field, the biotech industry is moving into the next generation, offering products with direct benefits for the healthy food revolution.
Monsanto has been working on developing plants that contain what some dub as the “world’s best healthy heart ingredient”- Omega 3 fatty acids - usually found in cold water, deep-sea wild fish.
Fish make Omega 3 as a result of eating algae from the ocean and Monsanto scientists are taking the Omega 3 gene from the algae and transferring it to soya beans and oil seed rape. Last year, harvests from field trials showed that 20% of the oil from the crops consisted of Omega 3.
Grant says: “The beautiful thing about this is that the oil crushed from those seeds does not taste of fish. It also means oil that a food manufacturer can put into a yogurt, a salad dressing, and a health bar, or even in corn flakes, and offer shoppers a daily requirement of Omega 3 without harvesting fish for that purpose.
“Therefore, it’s good news from a food point of view because it is a cheaper, more sustainable source.”
Monsanto expects the products, subject to regulatory approval, to be available by 2009.
The company is also contributing to a development in the Philippines to produce vitamin A enhanced GM rice, and other “healthy” products are understood to be in the pipeline.
But what about claims from UK activists that even some members of the US public have begun to question the safety and viability of GM? At the annual International Convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation in San Francisco recently, a gaggle of protestors in Grim Reaper and Frankenstein costumes loudly made their views known.
Grant, however, is adamant. “Market research and anecdotal evidence tells me that such a discussion is not on US shoppers’ radar screens. And that is mainly because of the combination of the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration - a combined regulatory system that consumers trust.”
He also cites the GM evolution in India. “Four years ago there was government concern about GM and field trials were being destroyed. Today, biotech cotton, approved by the Indian authorities, is being planted and small companies are preparing to do research.”
But given the events worldwide, he must surely be disappointed by the lack of support for GM foods in Britain? “I am very encouraged by the Food Standards Agency,” he says. “And while things cannot happen
overnight, the FSA is giving balance to the GM debate in Britain. And that is real progress.
“In addition, a general European regulatory system, that took way too long to appear, has started working.
“As Asia expanded into GM, Europe went backwards. But now things are moving in Europe, where some 25 GM products have been awaiting Brussels’ approval. In the last six months we have seen the machinery restart and the GM debate is being reignited on a scientific level.”
Back in his adopted country of the US, Grant says that compared with four years ago, the group is receiving more calls from food manufacturers interested in using GM raw materials.
“Given the debate about nutrition and obesity in the US, suddenly our products are regarded as potential solutions,” he says.
So is it time for Monsanto to turn up the publicity machine in the UK to promote GM against the continuing barrage from the activists? Grant nods cautiously, but adds: “I am not a fan of empty rhetoric. I prefer to see new products and technologies have a part in the dialogue.
“However, given that we are close to the stage when we can be talking about Omega 3 in soya, or even a formulation that can be worked in yogurt or salad dressing, it takes us from an abstract to an absolute. And that makes for an easier conversation with food companies rather than simply appearing a visionary.”
While Grant believes Monsanto can help in the discussion about GM in the UK, he does not think the group should be leading it. “I am not presumptuous enough to think that an American technology company should lead that discussion with the British consumer. Clearly, that is something that should be led by retailers, food manufacturers and British scientists.
“We have a part to play. But the mistake that we made in 1997 was that we arrogantly believed that we could and should lead it. It is OK to make a mistake once, but unacceptable to make it twice.”
The European debate about GM will be played out country by country, believes Grant. “The discussion in the UK is a different one to that in France or Holland. But I believe that it is an easier conversation in Britain now that the FSA exists where there was a vacuum.
“In truth, we have never really stopped talking to the agencies and authorities in the UK, but recently it has been more low key, and more practicably based.
“Second, compared with four years ago, more people are engaged in the discussion, and it helps our cause when big retailers cross their traditional borders through store expansion. Also, we are no longer the spear-catcher for this issue, and that is kind of nice.”
Finally, Grant says he is encouraged by the recent growing support from the UK farming community.
“Having said that, farmers are not vocal. They are genuinely conservative, so I am not holding my breath on them storming Whitehall. But the opinion among those that I have met in the UK countryside is that there is more willingness to at least try GM when they are able to.”
Is it realistic to believe that the organic system in the UK could ever live harmoniously alongside GM food on supermarket shelves?
Grant’s answer is an emphatic “yes”. He adds: “There will always be a small percentage of consumers who will be prepared to pay significant premiums for organic. And I am fine with that. But there will also always be a big piece of supermarket shelf space that focuses the consumer on price and quality and the last decade has shown that GM technology has a part to play in driving price and quality.”
The fact that the EU is allowing imports of a genetically engineered sweetcorn, developed by Swiss firm Syngenta, thus ending a six-year moratorium on the approval of biotech food, suggests that attitudes may already be changing in Europe. Grant says, “The challenge is to introduce consumer choice to the debate so when shoppers walk into supermarkets they get a chance to select something that is clearly labelled as GM or produced in an alternative system.
“That is where the frustration lies, because if the price were right I think British consumers would happily buy GM products.”
Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth et al would have everyone believe there’s not a cat’s hope in hell that GMOs will hold a stake on British supermarket shelves, especially now that US GM pioneer Monsanto has pulled out of the European seed cereal business and closed a research centre near Cambridge.
Yet at Monsanto’s HQ in St Louis, scientists are quietly confident that the vilified food science will eventually spread worldwide, as The Grocer discovered during an exclusive interview with Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, last week.
Speak to any Monsanto executive, and you’ll soon be inundated with statistics. Did you know, for instance, that: 18 nations plant biotech crops, and the 2003 acreage grew by 15% over the previous year; or that seven million farmers worldwide grew GM last year, six million of them in developing countries; how about the fact that half the world’s population live in countries that grew the crops during 2003; and 90% of the massive US soya bean crop this year will be biotech.
In the UK, these are the sort of statistics that strike fear into the heart. But in the US, they are used to supporting the company’s case. In truth, many in the US food and farming community are amazed that UK protestors have created lingering, nagging doubt in the minds of millions of consumers. As one pro-GM scientist put it to me: “Britain has become the islands of introspection on this issue.”
Typical of the opinions expressed in the US are those of prominent soya bean and corn farmer Greg Guenther, a former national director of the US Corn Growers’ Association. Standing in a cornfield in his 850 acres in Belleville, Illinois, he says: “Prince Charles, by opposing genetic modification, has not done his country any favours.
“My message to EU agriculturalists is that if you all want to go 100% organic, instead of taking up GM, be my guest. We will pick up the markets that you miss, but don’t come crying to us when you lose money. US farmers are laughing at the way people across the pond are being manipulated by Greenpeace. Genetic modification gives us a technological advantage in world commodity markets.”
Grant, who has just returned from a tour of several European states, including the UK, is just as confident the sceptics will eventually be won over.
Recalling The Grocer’s visit to St Louis in 2000, he says: “Four years ago, the GM debate was transatlantic. But it has been broadened considerably in recent times to become a global discussion.”
He feels encouraged that a large chunk of GM’s growth in recent years has come from Asia, notably India, China, Indonesia and the Philippines, where more small farmers and low input agriculture have embraced the technology.
Globally, the first GM soya beans went into the ground in 1996, and now the total planted is over half a billion acres. Yet, argues Grant: “Despite that growth, the sky has not fallen in on GM worldwide. None of the terrible things that were predicted for consumers who ate GM food have occurred. And in the US it is estimated that £50m worth of pesticides were not needed last year, as GM plantings spread. More and more North American farmers are embracing the technology because they can see that it works.”
Grant believes the global debate on GM has moved from theory to delivery. After extolling the benefits of GMOs in the agronomic field, the biotech industry is moving into the next generation, offering products with direct benefits for the healthy food revolution.
Monsanto has been working on developing plants that contain what some dub as the “world’s best healthy heart ingredient”- Omega 3 fatty acids - usually found in cold water, deep-sea wild fish.
Fish make Omega 3 as a result of eating algae from the ocean and Monsanto scientists are taking the Omega 3 gene from the algae and transferring it to soya beans and oil seed rape. Last year, harvests from field trials showed that 20% of the oil from the crops consisted of Omega 3.
Grant says: “The beautiful thing about this is that the oil crushed from those seeds does not taste of fish. It also means oil that a food manufacturer can put into a yogurt, a salad dressing, and a health bar, or even in corn flakes, and offer shoppers a daily requirement of Omega 3 without harvesting fish for that purpose.
“Therefore, it’s good news from a food point of view because it is a cheaper, more sustainable source.”
Monsanto expects the products, subject to regulatory approval, to be available by 2009.
The company is also contributing to a development in the Philippines to produce vitamin A enhanced GM rice, and other “healthy” products are understood to be in the pipeline.
But what about claims from UK activists that even some members of the US public have begun to question the safety and viability of GM? At the annual International Convention of the Biotechnology Industry Organisation in San Francisco recently, a gaggle of protestors in Grim Reaper and Frankenstein costumes loudly made their views known.
Grant, however, is adamant. “Market research and anecdotal evidence tells me that such a discussion is not on US shoppers’ radar screens. And that is mainly because of the combination of the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration - a combined regulatory system that consumers trust.”
He also cites the GM evolution in India. “Four years ago there was government concern about GM and field trials were being destroyed. Today, biotech cotton, approved by the Indian authorities, is being planted and small companies are preparing to do research.”
But given the events worldwide, he must surely be disappointed by the lack of support for GM foods in Britain? “I am very encouraged by the Food Standards Agency,” he says. “And while things cannot happen
overnight, the FSA is giving balance to the GM debate in Britain. And that is real progress.
“In addition, a general European regulatory system, that took way too long to appear, has started working.
“As Asia expanded into GM, Europe went backwards. But now things are moving in Europe, where some 25 GM products have been awaiting Brussels’ approval. In the last six months we have seen the machinery restart and the GM debate is being reignited on a scientific level.”
Back in his adopted country of the US, Grant says that compared with four years ago, the group is receiving more calls from food manufacturers interested in using GM raw materials.
“Given the debate about nutrition and obesity in the US, suddenly our products are regarded as potential solutions,” he says.
So is it time for Monsanto to turn up the publicity machine in the UK to promote GM against the continuing barrage from the activists? Grant nods cautiously, but adds: “I am not a fan of empty rhetoric. I prefer to see new products and technologies have a part in the dialogue.
“However, given that we are close to the stage when we can be talking about Omega 3 in soya, or even a formulation that can be worked in yogurt or salad dressing, it takes us from an abstract to an absolute. And that makes for an easier conversation with food companies rather than simply appearing a visionary.”
While Grant believes Monsanto can help in the discussion about GM in the UK, he does not think the group should be leading it. “I am not presumptuous enough to think that an American technology company should lead that discussion with the British consumer. Clearly, that is something that should be led by retailers, food manufacturers and British scientists.
“We have a part to play. But the mistake that we made in 1997 was that we arrogantly believed that we could and should lead it. It is OK to make a mistake once, but unacceptable to make it twice.”
The European debate about GM will be played out country by country, believes Grant. “The discussion in the UK is a different one to that in France or Holland. But I believe that it is an easier conversation in Britain now that the FSA exists where there was a vacuum.
“In truth, we have never really stopped talking to the agencies and authorities in the UK, but recently it has been more low key, and more practicably based.
“Second, compared with four years ago, more people are engaged in the discussion, and it helps our cause when big retailers cross their traditional borders through store expansion. Also, we are no longer the spear-catcher for this issue, and that is kind of nice.”
Finally, Grant says he is encouraged by the recent growing support from the UK farming community.
“Having said that, farmers are not vocal. They are genuinely conservative, so I am not holding my breath on them storming Whitehall. But the opinion among those that I have met in the UK countryside is that there is more willingness to at least try GM when they are able to.”
Is it realistic to believe that the organic system in the UK could ever live harmoniously alongside GM food on supermarket shelves?
Grant’s answer is an emphatic “yes”. He adds: “There will always be a small percentage of consumers who will be prepared to pay significant premiums for organic. And I am fine with that. But there will also always be a big piece of supermarket shelf space that focuses the consumer on price and quality and the last decade has shown that GM technology has a part to play in driving price and quality.”
The fact that the EU is allowing imports of a genetically engineered sweetcorn, developed by Swiss firm Syngenta, thus ending a six-year moratorium on the approval of biotech food, suggests that attitudes may already be changing in Europe. Grant says, “The challenge is to introduce consumer choice to the debate so when shoppers walk into supermarkets they get a chance to select something that is clearly labelled as GM or produced in an alternative system.
“That is where the frustration lies, because if the price were right I think British consumers would happily buy GM products.”
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