THE Environmental Protection Agency has granted a US transnational chemical conglomerate, Monsanto, a licence to test genetically-modified sugar beet in Co Carlow, on land owned by Teagasc, it was reported last week. Despite accepting that "there is widespread concern about GMO (genetically-modified organisms) use", the EPA has allowed Monsanto to go ahead, just two months in advance of a public seminar on genetic engineering it has planned for June.
The EPA brushed aside the contents of more than 190 submissions, and appears to have ignored the advice of Eurotoques the chefs' organisation, that "no further authorisation be given for new products until consumers can be assured that there is no risk involved".
Now, I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but, in the coming election, food lovers might consider voting for the Natural Law Party. Or even Fianna Fail.
That's right. Bertie and his boys. Maybe it is the Soldiers of Destiny we need in office, because people who care about their spuds - and the rest of their food - might feel let down by the Environmental Protection Agency and the current Government, and Fianna Fail along with the Natural Law Party and the Greens, says it is going to do something about it.
Noel Dempsey, Fianna Fail spokesman on agriculture, has said that in office his party will reverse the EPA decision. The Green Party's position on this issue has always been firm, and it has led the way in opposing such experiments. The EPA decision, says Paula Giles, Green Party spokeswoman on food and agriculture, is a cynical betrayal of the environment".
Mr Dempsey was quoted as saying that genetic engineering of crops is a "huge nutritional experiment, with our population and environment as guinea pigs. The potential consequences are unknown and #unknowable, the risk is unthinkable and unacceptable."
So, what has this got to do with spuds?
Well, back in 1993, a panel of German chefs, concerned at the whole question of genetically-modified foods, presented a menu which included, among delights such as smoked trout fillets spliced with human growth hormone and melon with virus gene, a lovely main course of grilled chicken modified with bovine growth hormone accompanied by a baked potato with scorpion gene.
Delicious. I'm sure children, who so love baked potatoes, will love them all the more with some nice scorpion gene to fillip the flavour, and I'm sure it will help them to grow up into healthy adults with discriminating palates. The bright new future, thanks to pioneering companies such as Monsanto.
Monsanto really likes genetically engineering crops. Thanks to it, you may already have sampled some nice gen-mod food. You may, for example, have already eaten some foods which contain its gen-mod soya beans, for thanks to the brave experiments of this beacon of American transnational vigour, those simple little beans have been altered.
But hang on a minute. You wouldn't buy a bag of beans which have had their DNA tweaked, would you? Not if it said on the label that the little critters had been monkeyed about with just so that they were resistant to a little herbicide called Roundup? A little herbicide produced by, well, Monsanto, actually.
Problem is, it doesn't say anything on the label of the foods because no one requires it, as yet. And it's not as if companies such as Monsanto have introduced the tweaked soya just to suit themselves. No, they say it's been done to aid farmers in the US, who find it just too awkward to prevent the tweaked soya getting mixed up with ordinary soya, even though the tweaked soya is only two per cent of the crop. But hell, what difference can two per cent make?
Well, quite a lot, when it is a product such as soya, which is widely used in processed foods. An investigative journalist, Joanna Blythman, has written that: "As a result, some 30,000 food products and 60 per cent of all the processed foods we buy in Britain will contain unlabelled gene beans in some form or other."
GENETIC engineering has, in the past, been touted as a panacea for all our ills, with suggestions that it will solve health problems, conquer hunger and improve the environment. A nice idea, and one which groups such as Genetic Concern, which has protested against the Carlow decision, don't believe for a second. As Quentin Gargan, spokesman for Genetic Concern, points out: "If BSE taught us one thing, it is that science is not absolute - what scientists believe to be safe today may be regarded differently tomorrow.
Apologists for the system suggest that it is little more than a new method of cross-breeding, which nature does anyway, all the time. But, of course, this is different, because genetically altered foods are "transgenic", i.e., they move genetic material from one organism to another irrespective of the species barrier. Scientists can take genes from anywhere, which is how we get some tasty scorpion gene with our baked potato.
This is all bad enough, of course, but what would happen if there was gene leakage, which can occur through pollination? If this happens, the genetically-modified organisms cannot be recalled. As shopkeeper Mary McDonnell, owner of the celebrated Tir na nOg store in Sligo, says: "Genes cannot be cleaned up like an oil spill. As a retailer, it is my responsibility to offer consumers choice, but I have no power to do this if I cannot identify an element in a food."
Furthermore, as Julie Sheppard of Genetics Forum has pointed out, the active ingredient of the Roundup herbicide is glyphosate, "known to cause liver and eye damage and reproductive problems in animals, and genetic damage to human blood cells". In California, glyphosate exposure was the third most commonly reported cause of pesticide illness among agricultural workers.
Glyphosate residues have been shown to persist in soil for more than a year. Crops planted a year after glyphosate treatment contained residues at harvest.
The funny thing is, the sugar beet is not for consumption, and will be destroyed each year. So, the question surely is, why bother? We don't need to produce more food, we have many safe ways of controlling pests, there is no benefit to the consumer, and surveys have shown that the overwhelming majority of people have a vociferous objection to genetically-modified food. As Mary McDonnell asks: "Why do we always find out about things when it is too late?"
Well, this time, maybe it's not too late. We can buy organically-produced food, which rejects the use of genetically-modified foods, and we can be angered by the way the EPA is doing its job and use our votes to bring to power political parties who recognise the risk which genetically-modified foods present. I suspect that "less than one acre" in Carlow is going to be quite an issue in the election.