[Nettime-bold] Farmer funds promoting genetically engineered wheat?

[Ryan Griffis <grifray@yahoo.com>]

Farm News from Cropchoice
An alternative news service for American farmers
http://www.cropchoice.com

2/20/2003
Farmer funds promoting genetically engineered wheat?
-------------------------------------------

by Robert Schubert

CropChoice editor

(Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Robert
Bornemann 
opposes
the commercialization of Roundup Ready wheat.

"This wheat will contaminate and destroy the organic
market, destroy 
the
IP [identity preserved] markets and destroy all of the
wheat markets. 
In
short, it will destroy farmers," says Bornemann, a
North Dakotan 
preparing
to sow his first certified organic crops.  He grows
hard red and white
spring wheat, flax, corn, alfalfa, oats, and raises
cattle.

Such reservations seem to be rising among northern
plains farmers about
the wheat Monsanto genetically engineered to resist
Roundup, its trade
name for the glyphosate herbicide.  Monsanto and its
allies have 
blocked
legislative efforts in Montana and the Dakotas to
impose moratoriums or
any other measure addressing concerns that foreign
market rejection of
Roundup Ready wheat could deflate both the exports and
the price for 
all
U.S. wheat varieties and classes.

With that victory in hand, Monsanto now appears to be
focusing on a
campaign to create the perception that farmers
everywhere are now
endorsing transgenic wheat.  If consumers believe this
to be so, they
might in turn drop their resistance.

Indeed, the Reuters news service quoted Monsanto
executive Michael Doane speaking at recent meetings of
key wheat industry groups in New Mexico:
"Consumers trust farmers...We've been investing in
this technology now for probably a decade.  We're
entering a new part of the project and need industry
help to educate decision makers.'"

Several farmers I spoke with regard those as coded
statements for the sellout of one organization, the
National Association of Wheat Growers. On top of that,
news emerged during the industry meetings that the 
other major player, U.S. Wheat Associates, had
received orders to stop publicizing negative feedback
from major foreign buyers about genetically modified
wheat.  To top it all off, the two groups announced
they 
likely would push forward with earlier merger plans.

These developments call into question whether taxpayer
dollars and the money Bornemann and most wheat farmers
are assessed at the point of sale for their crops will
be used to promote Monsanto's Roundup Ready wheat.

"I don't believe it's right for a for-profit
corporation to be using my checkoff dollars and our
tax dollars to promote its product," Bornemann says.

Such a practice could strike at the heart of his and
other farmers' First Amendment right to free
expression.

As a practitioner of organic agriculture, the
standards of which disallow the use of genetically
engineered seeds, Bornemann takes seriously the
environmental and agronomic effects of biotechnology. 
But he also 
shares with many of his fellow farmers deep concerns
about the economic consequences of Roundup Ready
wheat.

Market Rejection and Corporate Subsidies

Jim Diepolder, a North Dakota grower of durum wheat,
bases his skepticism on  stern warnings from Asia and
Europe that they do not want and will not accept
genetically modified wheat.

Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and other
agribusiness corporations export half of the wheat
that U.S. farmers grow.  More than 50 percent of North
Dakota's hard red spring wheat goes to Europe and
Asia.  Half of the durum wheat is exported, much of it
to the European Union.

The U.S. Durum Growers Association over which
Diepolder currently presides won't endorse Monsanto's
wheat until customers do, he says.  Although the
transgenic wheat in question is a hard red spring
variety, not durum, 
the EU and other markets have said they'd shun all
American wheat if a biotech variety were
commercialized.

"I have a personal litmus test" when it comes to this,
says Diepolder, now speaking on behalf of himself, not
the Durum Growers.  "Is it good for me, the farmer? 
Is it profitable?"

The cost of producing wheat in North Dakota runs about
$100 to $120 per acre, he says. Farmers are raising
about 30 bushels per acre and receiving about $3 per
bushel, which means they make $90 per acre.  That's
less than the cost of production.  Currently, the
government pays them the difference.  If the more
expensive Roundup Ready wheat seed were available
today and farmers chose to purchase it and pay the
technology fee, they would be using government (i.e.,
taxpayer) money.

"It would be the taxpayers through their subsidies
helping farmers to pay the technology fees," he says. 
"Any subsidy is supposed to go to farmers, not to
Monsanto."

Farmers on Board?

But if the reports out of the late January wheat
industry meetings were any indicator, Diepolder's and
others' apprehension about lost markets is supposed to
have vanished.

The "farmers are on board...this week's annual
gathering found firm support for Monsanto and
eagerness to obtain the potential benefits the
technology might offer," according to the Reuters
story cited earlier.
"'Rather than sitting on the sidelines hoping that it
wins acceptance, we're trying to help out,' said
National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) CEO
Darren Coppock. 'It's very much a partnership (with
Monsanto).'"

Richard Flanders appears to be on board a different
boat.

"Once it's introduced it will have to be segregated,
which is impossible with a bulk distribution system,"
Flanders says.  "Most businesses are concerned with
customer acceptance of their product.  As a farmer, I
am concerned with export markets."

So concerned that he left the North Dakota Grain
Growers Association, itself a member of the national
organization, two years ago because of its stance in
favor of the product.

The National Association of Wheat Growers lobbies
Congress, the White House, and regulatory agencies for
laws, policies and regulations to help
family wheat farmers.  Some critics claim that the
organization doesn't represent farmers at all, but
rather agribusiness interests.

About 35,000 farmers pay dues to state wheat
associations that are NAWG members, says CEO Darren
Coppock.  The states in turn contributed two thirds of
its $1.2 million budget last year.  The elected
presidents and vice presidents of the state bodies
make up the board of directors.

Given that more than 240,000 U.S. farmers grow wheat,
according to the Department of Agriculture's 1997
census, NAWG indirectly represents fewer than 20
percent of them.  That doesn't surprise Kathleen
Kelley, a Colorado rancher and vice president of
R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America
(http://www.r-calfusa.com).  During her days as a
wheat grower some 20 years ago, Kelley briefly served
on the board of the Colorado Association of Wheat
Growers, a NAWG member.

She remembers attending one of its leadership
trainings, which she views as corporate brainwashing. 
Gazing around her posh hotel suite, Kelley knew that
membership dues couldn't stretch that far.  They
didn't. Carl Swenson, then head of NAWG, informed her
that much of the support came from agribusiness and
that they didn't really need membership dues.

"Without the support of corporations, NAWG wouldn't
have enough members to meet in a phone booth," Kelley
says.

The organization's website, http://www.wheatworld.org,
includes a page highlighting the support of associate
members Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow AgroSciences and other
corporations.  They, along with conference revenue,
funded 25 percent of its 2002 budget, certainly not
enough to claim that business is running the NAWG
show, Coppock says.

But in Kelley's view, it's not the quantity of dollars
that plays the decisive role: "I think there's a
culture, a tradition, of leaning toward the
agribusiness position.  Taking an anti-agribusiness
position could jeopardize what sponsorships they do
get."

Jim Diepolder, whose Durum Growers Association is a
NAWG affiliate, but not a member, sees a major
corporate presence at conventions, though he thinks
it's lessened a bit in recent years.

"It gave me an uneasy feeling in that who's footing
the bill and whom do you become loyal to," says
Diepolder, again expressing his personal views.

During the New Mexico wheat industry meetings, he says
a farmer stood up and said to Monsanto executive
Michael Doane as he prepared to speak, 
"I hope you're going to charge as much in Canada for
dinners."  The farmer was referring to the different
prices that Monsanto (and other agribusiness
companies) charges for products and services in the
United States and Canada.  Some call such practices
antitrust.

Whether NAWG follows the corporate line in general is
debatable, but when it comes to Monsanto Corporation's
Roundup Ready wheat,  "NAWG absolutely is pushing U.S.
Wheat Associates to promote it,' he says.

What is U.S. Wheat Associates?

This organization, which along with NAWG is a major
player in the wheat industry, has the mandate and
responsibility of promoting the acceptance
and purchase of all U.S. wheat varieties and classes
in foreign markets.

As it has always done in its promotion work, U.S.
Wheat conducted surveys over the past few years on the
question of genetically engineered wheat.
It has openly shared with media a steady flow of
comments from Japanese, Korean and European buyers,
all critical export destinations, that they'll shop
elsewhere, such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Hungary,
India, China, Australia and Canada.

But the release of that information to the public
bothered members of the biotechnology committee that
the National Association of Wheat Growers and U.S.
Wheat Associates formed two years ago because they had
not seen it first, says Darrell Hanavan, chairman of
the committee and director of the Colorado Association
of Wheat Growers.

That's why, during the industry convention in New
Mexico, the committee directed U.S. Wheat not to
release any more such surveys or information,
especially in regard to consumer acceptance, without
its prior approval. Both the NAWG and U.S .Wheat
boards of directors approved it, Hanavan says.

Though the order is in accordance with the rules, is
it right?  He says this doesn't mean USDA or another
government entity couldn't get access to the
information,  and emphasizes that no one objected when
he raised the issue.

The order is not about censorship, he says.  Instead,
the committee felt the need to see the market data and
feedback to determine how it fits with
the industry's official biotechnology policy and
whether it needs modification.

Though the preface of the policy, available at
http://www.uswheat.org/Biotech.nsf/9fe8bbaadaf8ae9685256a310068c1fc/6a5640
0be761dce685256a3100670b8d?OpenDocument, foresees the
eventual commercialization and planting of transgenic
wheat, its first point emphasizes that markets must be
willing buyers.

The industry leaders apparently want a more proactive
effort to create that willingness.  Indeed, the
biotech committee directed U.S. Wheat Associates staff
to begin developing a marketing strategy for Roundup
Ready wheat, says Dawn Forsythe, director of public
affairs for U.S. Wheat Associates.

North Dakota farmer Louis Kuster thinks that
proponents of transgenic wheat ardently believe
producers' costs will be less with Roundup Ready
variety and that farmers are being deprived of this in
part by heavily
publicized information about market rejection.  They
seem to think that more energetic promotion would
bring buyers around to their viewpoint.

Unfortunately, he says, there are problems with this
scenario:
One, if a store salesman is badgering customers to buy
jackets made of leather instead of the cloth they
want, eventually they get fed up and go elsewhere. 
The same is true with transgenic wheat.

Two, the proponents dismiss the idea of market
rejection because they're looking at wheat in the same
way they do genetically modified corn and soybeans. 
Those exports haven't crashed -- although Iowa State 
University agricultural economist Robert Wisner
estimates the cumulative economic loss of U.S. corn
exports since the introduction of transgenic corn to 
be nearly $1 billion --  so what's to worry about
wheat?  The difference is that the United States faces
much more export competition from other wheat-growing
nations.  Unlike corn and soybeans, wheat is used
mostly in human food and follows a comparatively
direct path into products.  In short, customers can
shop elsewhere.

Three, the technology may not lead to the
environmental benefit of lessened herbicide usage, as
Monsanto claims.  For example, he notes the
Roundup-resistant corn sprouting in fields of Roundup
Ready soybeans. Monsanto, as part of the technology
agreement, is supplying Select herbicide to kill the
corn.  Thus, herbicide usage is more, not less.  And
when the producer eventually has to use other
herbicides, their costs go up, not down.

Monsanto's Promise

"We are relying on Monsanto's commitment to us that
they will not commercialize Roundup Ready wheat until
there is buyer acceptance in foreign markets," says
Forsythe of U.S. Wheat Associates.

But what does that promise mean?  Monsanto is in poor
financial shape and is banking on this product,
according to many analysts.  Therefore, a changing
management cast might view the commitment as a
hindrance.

"Desperate men resort to desperate measures," Kuster
says.  "If Monsanto can point to some markets that
might accept it, they would see that as amounting to
sales of enough seed to cover their costs, so they
might go for it."

Says Diepolder: "If seventy percent of the market
accepts the wheat it would be profitable for the
corporations to sell it, but it wouldn't be profitable
for us to grow it.  They make money, but it's a wreck
for us. The proponents of this wheat have used the
word that it will 'indirectly' benefit us.  That word
is a red flag for me. A lot of things that indirectly
were supposed to help us [e.g., trade agreements, farm
programs] have actually directly harmed us.

"There's no profit in three dollar wheat and no profit
in paying technology fees on top of that.  If we lose
ten cents on a bushel on this farm, that's ten
thousand dollars, so I have to be concerned."

When asked about the predictions of Dan McGuire,
policy chairman of the American Corn Growers
Association, that market rejection of U.S. wheat could
drop prices to about $2 or less, Diepolder has two
words: "Feed wheat."  Such a price plunge would leave
farmers to grow wheat for livestock feed or put them
out of business.  It would also further depress prices
for corn, grown mostly for feed.

Check-offs and Freedom of Expression

A day after reports of the industry call for quiet
about buyer resistance, news emerged that NAWG, U.S.
Wheat Associates and the Wheat Export Trade Education
Committee (WETEC) would move forward on a merger plan.

In light of that, organic grower Robert Bornemann and
other farmers are concerned about whether the
assessments they pay at the point of sale on each
bushel of wheat they market will end up promoting this
transgenic wheat to skeptical markets.  In short,
could their money be used to market something that
will harm them financially?

Check-offs began after World War II when various
agricultural crop and commodity sectors needed money
to fund research and to promote their products.  A
wool assessment, the first such nationwide effort,
began 
in the 1950s.  The egg, beef, cotton, honey, mushroom,
dairy, pork, potato, watermelon, popcorn and soybean
assessments began later.  Various state check-off
programs exist, as well.

North Dakota's wheat assessment is one of them. 
Growers are assessed, at the point of sale, one penny
per bushel.  They can request a refund within
60 days of the sale.  (State legislators last week
approved a measure increasing the check-off to 1.5
cents per bushel, with some of the half penny boost to
benefit the state's Grain Growers Association, a 
transgenic wheat proponent.)

However, the agricultural landscape has changed
drastically since the start of the livestock and grain
assessments, says Kathleen Kelley of R-CALF USA.  The
once numerous and relatively small meat packing and 
grain processing and trading businesses (lacking the
size to wield monopoly power over markets) didn't have
the resources to promote the food and fiber
ingredients they'd purchased at prices that were
profitable for
farmers.  The check-offs served as generic
advertising.

Now, Cargill, ConAgra and a few other companies
monopolize livestock and grain purchasing, processing,
distribution and end-product sales. Thus, the
check-offs are directly benefiting them, not the
growers,  Kelley says.

Given that reality, the question being asked more
regularly by farmers across the country is whether
commodity check-offs have become a farmer-financed
agribusiness promotion scheme that works against 
farmers and for agribusiness giants.

Is this the case with Monsanto and Roundup Ready
wheat?

Most of the revenue from the various state wheat
assessments goes to U.S. Wheat Associates, and
accounted for about $4 million of its $12 million
budget last year, Forsythe says.  The other $8 million
came from the USDA's Foreign Market Development
program.



(That program's roots extend to the 1954 Food for
Peace act, which on the face of it was about donating
grain to countries in need.  However, the law
benefited Cargill and other major grain traders.  "The
promise of
eventual commercial purchases was often a specific
precondition for the food aid in the first place,"
writes Brewster Kneen in the recently released second
edition of his book, "Invisible Giant: Cargill and its
Transnational Strategies.")

As in previous years, U.S. Wheat Associates used most
of last year's checkoff income -- $3.8 million -- for
maintaining offices in Washington, D.C. and Portland,
Ore. and for planning its promotion strategy.  The
other $200,000 went into export market development.
Meanwhile, in accordance with federal law, the
organization put the $8 million from the USDA
(translation: taxpayers) into foreign market work.

Robert Bornemann thinks those check-off dollars could
fund, evenindirectly, promotion of Roundup Ready
wheat.  He opposes such use of his money.  In
agreement on this point are his fellow North Dakotans
Linda Rauser, Jim Diepolder, Richard Flanders, Louis
Kuster, Dell Gates, 
Blaine Schmaltz and Todd Leake.

In fact, this use of Bornemann's checko-ff money
probably violates his First Amendment right of free
expression because it amounts to political speech with
which he disagrees, says Nebraska lawyer Dan Alberts. 
The Supreme Court last year ruled the mushroom
check-off unconstitutional 
for that reason.  Later, a South Dakota federal judge
handed down a similar decision on the beef assessment.

What about the fact that U.S. Wheat invests most of
the money into planning and domestic work?

"For First Amendment free speech purposes, the idea
that I use the money to prepare to speak [promote the
biotech wheat] and then use the other money for
actually speaking, is not a distinction that will hold
up," Alberts says.  "That's a little like saying that
I got ten dollars from my mom to buy groceries but
instead I bought beer and defended myself by saying
that I did not use the actual ten she gave me but some
other ten. Mom would cry foul and not give me any more
money.  I think the same should be true for the
checkoff payer."

Looking Beyond Markets to Potential Long Run
Implications

Bornemann, also a seed cleaner, predicts that U.S.
farmers will lose the right to save their seed after
Monsanto's genes migrate to conventional and organic
varieties.  Those who chose to continue growing wheat
would have to buy the more expensive transgenic seed
and sign the technology agreements that forbid seed
saving.  Failure to do so could mean a Monsanto
lawsuit for patent infringement. They would grow the
wheat
under contract, and he envisions Monsanto partnering
with Cargill or another corporation to buy the
harvested crop as cheaply as possible.

"It would mean total vertical integration in the wheat
industry," Bornemann says.  "Then, consumers would be
at their mercy."

Todd Leake doesn't see it quite that way.

"Even if North Dakota were to pass a moratorium, I
don't think they'd enforce it," says Leake, a wheat
grower.  "If it's [biotech wheat] going to die, it's
going to die under its own weight, its own liability."

He believes the next generation of transgenic wheat
could bring that downfall.

Five farmers from the state got a glimpse of the
future on their December trip to Monsanto headquarters
in St. Louis, says Leake, who wasn't among them.  They
came back with the impression that the company wants
to
establish genetically modified wheat in as many parts
of the world in order to set the stage for varieties
designed to produce drugs, nutrients and industrial
chemicals.

"That would be unpalatable, society just wouldn't
support it," he says.

Indeed, NAWG leader Darren Coppock has no enthusiasm
for such a product because the wheat market is small
and because of the serious issues involved with
cross-pollination and mixed seed and grain, all of
which could leave consumers with surprises in their
bread.

Editor's note: Monsanto would not comment on this
story.




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___________________________________________
Northwest Resistance Against Genetic Engineering
P.O.Box 15289
Portland, OR. 97293
ph. 503.239.6841
www.nwrage.org
info@nwrage.org



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