Monster in the chicken shed

Genetically modified food is often called "Frankenfood".  Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster, in Mary Shelley's famous novel.  The monster was assembled from bits of dead bodies by the brilliant but wayward scientist Victor Frankenstein.

The moral of the story is that science and technology can be a force for evil when man "plays God".

Greenpeace has played on this theme in their campaign against genetically modified (GM) food.  The argument goes something along the lines of GM food is a product of scientists "playing with" the basic genetic makeup of organisms, GM crops are therefore unnatural and unsafe, GM is therefore bad.

Of course the arguments for and against GM are much more complex, as are the arguments for and against all our technologies.

GM cotton has been a huge success -- a boon not just for cotton farmers but also the environment with the latest GM cotton varieties reducing pesticide application rates by 85 per cent.  GM Cotton has been grown now for over eight years with no "monster" traits emerging.

But a first principle of propaganda is to reduce all data to a simple confrontation between "good and bad", "friend or foe".

Greenpeace does not seem interested in debating the pros and cons of GM but rather repeating the simple message that GM is bad.

The latest anti-GM Greenpeace campaign has been to bully chicken producers into agreeing not to feed their chickens GM soy ("Chicken trio agree to end GM grain use", The Land, February 17, pg 32).

It is Greenpeace which has behaved as the "monster" and Inghams, Bartter-Steggles and Baiada have seemed rather chicken in their response.

While Greenpeace claims consumers don't want to buy chicken that has been fed GM soy, there has apparently been no drop in sales as a consequence of Greenpeace's campaign.

Greenpeace has suggested Australian chicken producers source non-GM soy from Brazil.  Brazil is the world's second largest exporter of soy after the US.

The Brazilian government had banned GM crops in response to Greenpeace campaigning.  However, in defiance of this ban Brazilian soybean farmers smuggled seed from neighboring Argentina -- so at least 30 per cent of GM-free Brazil's soybean crop has been GM for some time.

Brazilian soybean farmers argue GM soybeans require less herbicide and are cheaper to grow than conventional varieties.

The anti-Ingham chicken campaign kicked off in April 2004, within weeks of Greenpeace securing a ban on the commercial production of GM canola in Australia.

With Inghams, Bartter-Steggles, and Baiada now rolling-over, Greenpeace say they will now go after Australian beef and pork producers who feed their animals GM soy.

Frankenstein may have been a work of fiction, but there is a real live monster currently terrorising Australian primary industries -- picking on them one by one.

It may seem like an easy financial decision to give-in today in the face of continual threats of product boycott from Greenpeace but our industries will all be that much less competitive tomorrow.

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