pathways, DECEMBER 2007
Genetically modified crops and food: a Catholic issue?
Columban priest, CHARLES RUE, argues that specific legislation must put the onus of responsibility back on to the biotech companies that promote GM rather than the farmers. He says, too, that the Labor Federal Government must be lobbied to forge a new direction. He believes that environmental issues are integral to the common good and to the Catholic faith.
The State governments in New South Wales and Victorian are set to lift moratoria on growing genetically modified (GM) crops. This is in spite of surveys showing the majority of farmers and consumers oppose GM.
So called 'scientific evidence' for change is mere cherry-picking from scientific reports. As I argued in Eureka Street (earlier this year), Australian State governments are captive to biotech promises of agricultural silver bullets and investment opportunities.
Federal government offices of gene regulation (OGTR) and food safety (FSANZ) have been white-anted.
Australia has implemented patenting laws that benefit GM seed companies. OGTR has approved GM crops without regard for the precautionary principle evidenced by the GM
contamination of Australian canola seed.
This suits the long-term economic goals of the biotech companies - undermine economic rivals and control the food chain. Neither the OGTR nor FSANZ conducts independent tests, relying instead on what the biotech companies tell them. The CSIRO has been forced to form profit oriented commercial partnership. Independent science is all but dead.
Until now, Federal government mechanisms have to some extent been neutralised by State GM laws. Only Tasmania and Western Australia are holding out.
moral questions
GM technology poses new issues.
The See-Judge-Act method pioneered by Young Christian Workers offers a Gospel based way of judging GM. Scripture says: I set before your life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, that you and our descendants may live. Deut 30:19
Until recently, a weakness in Catholic thought has been a short sighted emphasis on human-focused social justice. I argued this in Catholics and Nature but went on to write But belief in the common good and honing skills in cooperative action prepared Catholics for the time when they became aware that environmental issues were integral to that common good and to their faith (ACSJC No. 57, 2006, p. 5).
Catholic bias towards the human in isolation from nature was displayed by the Pontifical Academy of Science when, with the US Embassy to the Holy See, it hosted a pro-GM conference entitled
Feeding the World: The moral imperative of Biotechnology (24.9.2004). Columban Father Sean McDonagh wrote
An Open Letter to the Vatican on Genetically Engineered Food (GM) after the
event dismay at how the Vatican was being manipulated by the GM lobby.
Outside of the bishops of southern Africa, no official Catholic statement on GM has emerged.
The
World Council of Churches (WCC) Working Group published
Caring for Life: Genetics, Agriculture and Human Life, Geneva, June 2005. It asks:
What is the problem GM is supposed to address? Who will benefit?
Issues raised by GM for Catholic social teaching fall into four main groups:
The technology is totally new and imprecise.
The transfer of a gene from one living organism to another is literally hit or miss as to where it is taken up by the host organism with unpredictable consequences.
Scientific doubt surrounds the GM use of viruses, anti-biotic markers, equivalence measures and the like. There may be more, not less, use of chemicals in agriculture. As Roundup-Ready (gluphosate) crops become ineffective they may be replaced by Agent Orange related Dicamba-Ready GM crops.
All this goes against Catholic teaching about wisdom and prudence.
For the farmers, GM already causes economic loses.
Australian farmers will loose the premiums they receive on world markets for GM-free produce. It will be impossible to grow crops in a conventional or organic way because of cross-pollination. Segregation is impossible. Farmers could be liable for giving a false declaration about their GM-free grain.
All this goes against Catholic teaching on justice.
For the consumer, GM foods pose unknown health risks.
Both grains and the products of animals fed with genetically modified feed, such as milk and eggs, pose risks. Case studies by Jeffery Smith show that modified genes can combine with bacteria in the human gut, cause allergic reactions. But these risks have not been fully tested. Precaution should come into play.
The risks connected with gene technology also spread to nature.
Genes can transfer into native relatives of GM plants. Chemical resistant new strains of plants (volunteers) will multiply. GM contamination also threatens humanity's insurance policy of gene diversity contained in the wild relatives of such crops as potatoes and wheat. Catholic teaching calls Earth God's first gift and to be learnt from as Job 12.12 assets.
moral action
Sisters like Maria Cunningham RSC and co-workers are helping to pick up the pieces of peoples' lives through their rural ministry.
GM will only add to farmers woes as it has in India. The Church there is responding to the alarming number of suicides among farmers, many because of failed GM cotton crops.
It was the plight of farmers seduced into growing transgenic crops and tribal communities robbed of their local genetic riches through patenting laws which prompted the
Columban missionaries to start a GM awareness campaign.
Cooperation with environmental NGOs is essential for Catholic action on the moral issue of GM. NGOs organise briefings for parliamentarians. NSW legislators heard from canola growers, scientists and the like. Lawyer Jeremy Tager explained how common law cannot protect farmers from liability if they sell GM contaminated crops.
Specific legislation must put the onus back on to the biotech companies that promote GM.
Federal Labor must be lobbied to forge a new direction.
Addressing 50,000 Italian farmers in November 2002, Pope John Paul II said:
...resist the temptation of high productivity and profit that work to the detriment of the respect
of nature ... when (farmers) forget this basic principle and become tyrants of the earth rather
than its custodians ... sooner or later the earth rebels.
Charles Rue was raised in Canowindra, NSW. A farmer for four years, he was President of the local Young Farmers before joining the Columbans. Ordained in 1968, he was appointed to South Korea . Back in Australia , he did Mission Education work in south eastern Australia 1984-90 during which time he completed a Masters in Environmental Planning. Again going overseas he worked as a parish priest in Jamaica WI 1990-95. Returning to Australia he headed the Regional Columban History Project and was granted a doctorate for his work. He is presently on the staff of the Centre for Peace Ecology and Justice (PEJ) within the Columban Mission Institute (CMI) Sydney . The centre publishes on transgenic food issues, and has started a Faith and Ecology Network to facilitate inter-faith dialogue and action on the common issue of ecology. He is Coordinator of the Columban Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation Office in Australia (JPICoz).
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