Food Bullies: What is Genetically Modified (GM) Food and How Does it Effect the World?

The Bush administration decided to sue the European Union, over it's five-year moratorium on genetically modified (GM) foods. A campaign targeted at prying open a major potential market. However, the suit before the World Trade Organization (WTO) may be aimed less at the European Union than at developing nations, which are far more vulnerable to strong-arm tactics. This is being done to fight the war against hunger and all those opposed are considered terrorist in fighting the war against world hunger by the Bush administration.

The reasons that this should be of interest and should be further examined, is that there is much at stake in this fight over biotechnology, and it has nothing to do with alleviating hunger or famine. The "Big Five" biotech companies Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Dow Chemical, and Aventis, have invested billions of dollars in research and development. Out of 1085 biotech patents, the Big Five control 937. 

The United States argues that the GM crops will allow countries to feed the growing world's population. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's own Economic Research Service found that GM crops yields were no higher than they are for regular (fertile) crops, and GM crops can be trickier to grow. GM seeds are sterile or non self-sustaining, cost more and few poor farmers have the cash to pay for sterile seeds annually. They have been dependant for millions of years on harvesting their fertile self-sustaining (open pollinating, non-hybrid or heritage) seeds to plant their next year's crops. Should this right be taken away from them?

Many African's are suspicious and see the spread of GM crops as creating a kind of "bioserfdom." They feel that GM crops will actually make Africa, even more dependant on big US seed companies for their food. 

Egypt had originally joined suit with the U.S., along with Argentina and Canada in the suit against the European Union's five-year moratorium, however, in the face of a domestic backlash as to the safety of GM food crops Egypt withdrew.