Governments have teamed up with the biotech industry in the past to
demonize critics of genetically modified foods and crops, as well as
promote efforts to propagandize their use. Now, it seems, academia is
teaming up with the industry as well, and for the same reasons.
In
a recent announcement, officials at Cornell University said the
institution would join a multi-million dollar campaign in an effort to
"depolarize the charged debate" centered around GMOs. And the biotech
industry, with its bought-and-paid-for supporters, are behind the new
push.
According to a report from Food & Water Watch,
an organization that tracks, among other things, GMO use around the
world, the university has launched a website to host the propaganda
effort, called Cornell Alliance for Science. So far, there is little on
it, but it does, at least, list pro-GMO partners of the effort.
They include the International Service for the Acquisition of
Agri-biotech Applications, or ISAAA, an entity funded by Bayer, Monsanto
and CropLife, which in turn is also funded by biotech and agrochemical
companies including BASF, DuPont, Dow AgroSciences and Syngenta.
'Science for sale'
"This use of surrogates is par for the course with the biotech industry," wrote Tim Schwab of Food & Water Watch.
"Sometimes called the soft lobby, corporations routinely engage
neutral-appearing scientists and impartial-sounding front groups to help
advance their political and economic agendas."
The organization
says it has detailed the huge amount of research that has been generated
by "our public land-grant universities" in a report published in 2012
called "Public Research, Private Gain." And Cornell, apparently, has
been a regular generator of "science for sale."
Earlier this year, a Cornell economist, William Lesser, accepted payment from what Schwab described as a "biotech
front group," in exchange for producing a highly suspect analysis
indicating that GMO labeling would be a huge cost for consumers. And
while Lesser said the study contained his personal observations rather
than those of Cornell, GMO
backers nevertheless began to refer to his findings as "the Cornell
study" in their efforts to stave off initiatives by states to force food
makers to include labeling of GMO ingredients in their products. At the
same time, Schwab noted, independent studies have shown that GMO
labeling would not increase food costs by much, if at all.
Cornell's
latest jaunt into the debate over GMOs, so dubbed the "Alliance for
Science," will mostly just add to confusion about this issue, as well as
factual distortions, regarding the public debate.
"Rather than
trying to promote a civil, honest, impartial dialogue about GMOs--as you
would expect from a university like Cornell--the school has chosen to
partner with some of the biotechnology industry's most prominent
supporters and defenders," Schwab wrote.
That is apparent judging
by the Cornell press release announcing the new pro-GMO initiative; the
school said the money -- $5.6 million -- came in the form of a grant
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has been notoriously supportive of GMO crops and foods.
We need open, honest debate, not bought-and-paid-for propaganda
"Proponents
and opponents alike speculate whether biotech crops are of benefit to
farmers, but rarely are those farmers engaged in the biotech discourse
or their voices heard," said Sarah Evanega, senior associate director of
International Programs in Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences (CALS), who will lead the project, according to the press
release.
"Our goal is to depolarize the GMO debate and engage
with potential partners who may share common values around poverty
reduction and sustainable agriculture, but may not be well informed
about the potential biotechnology has for solving major agricultural
challenges," Evanega continued. "For instance, pro-biotech activists
share a lot of the same anti-pesticide, low-input,
sustainable-agriculture vision as the organic movement."
Regarding Gates, as Food & Water Watch
noted, the philanthropy has partnered with biotech firms to develop GM
crops for Africa, though African nations either don't want them or don't
need them (because their organic food production is sufficient for
their needs).
At a juncture when Americans really need a clear
and open (and honest) discussion about GMO foods and GM crops, here
comes one of nation's top academic institutions, taking money from the
world's richest man, to muddy the waters in the debate over one of the
seminal food issues of our day.
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