Food Fight

By Jeffrey Kluger

The folks at McDonald's could not have expected an especially warm reception in France, but the manure in the parking lots still must have taken them by surprise. For the past three weeks it's been hard to visit a McDonald's anywhere in France without running the risk of encountering mountains of fresh manure--as well as not-so-fresh fruit and vegetables--dumped in front of the restaurants by protesting farmers.

There's a lot about McDonald's that angers the farmers--its sameness, its blandness, the culinary hegemony it represents--yet at the outset the demonstrations were remarkably genteel, with protesters occupying restaurants and offering customers an alternative meal of baguettes stuffed with cheese or foie gras. But lately things have turned nasty. Protesters are finding ever more to dislike about the uniquely American food--especially the very genes that make the McDonald's beef or bun or potato what it is.

Around the world people are taking a closer look at the genetic makeup of what they're eating--and growing uneasy with what they see. Over the past decade, genetically modified (GM) food has become an increasingly common phenomenon as scientists in the U.S. and elsewhere have rewoven the genes of countless fruits and vegetables, turning everyday crops into uber-crops able to resist frost, withstand herbicides and even produce their own pesticides. In all, more than 4,500 GM plants have been tested, and at least 40--including 13 varieties of corn, 11 varieties of tomatoes and four varieties of soybeans--have cleared government reviews.

For biotech companies such as Monsanto, based in the U.S., and Novartis AG, based in Switzerland, the rise of GM technology has meant boom times. Sales of GM seeds rose in value from $75 million in 1995 to $1.5 billion last year, and the crops they produce are turning up not only on produce shelves but also in processed foods from cookies to potato chips to baby food.

But many people question whether it's a good idea for fallible human beings to go mucking about with the genes of other species. It's one thing if a scientific experiment goes wrong in a lab, they say, but something else entirely if it winds up on your dinner plate. To date, there's nothing to suggest that re-engineered plants have ever done anyone any harm. Nonetheless, the European Union has blocked the importation of some GM crops, and since 1997 has required that foods that contain engineered DNA be labeled as such. Plenty of trade watchers in Washington see the European actions as one more tweak from an increasingly powerful E.U. no longer intimidated by U.S. economic might. While that may be, the fact remains that the U.S. Congress may address a labeling bill of its own this fall, and some private groups are threatening lawsuits to force the issue. Even without legal action, public opinion is turning a more skeptical eye on GM technology. "The farmers in France are right," observes Dennis Kucinich, a House Democrat from Cleveland, Ohio, who stumbled across the GM-food issue in the spring, and is turning it into something of a cause. "There's nothing more personal than food."

If the outcry in France indeed portends global trouble, it's by no means clear whether it ought to. For all the controversy that GM technology is causing, the fact is that biotech companies have succeeded in dreaming up some extraordinary plants. Monsanto, which produces the hugely popular herbicide Roundup, has made just as big a hit with its line of genetically modified crops that are immune to the Roundup poison--thanks to a gene that company scientists tweezed out of the common petunia and knitted into their food plants. Other GM crops have been designed to include a few scraps of dna from a common bacterium, rendering the plants toxic to leaf-chewing insects but not to humans.

Such souped-up plants are understandably popular with farmers, for whom even a slight increase in yield can mean a big increase in profits. Last year in the U.S., 35% of the soy crop and 42% of the cotton crop were grown with GM seeds. Says Karen Marshall, a Monsanto spokeswoman: "These really do work and have tremendous benefits to growers."

But what happens when they don't work? Several years ago, a company developed a soybean with some genetic threads borrowed from the Brazil nut in an attempt to boost the bean's amino-acid content. The soy began acting like the nut--so much so that it churned out not just amino acids but also chemicals that can trigger allergies in nut-sensitive consumers. The company quickly scrapped the product. Last spring a study published by Cornell University showed that pollen from some strains of corn with built-in pesticides can kill the larva of the Monarch butterfly, a pest by nobody's standards. "When butterflies start dying," says Kucinich, "I think it's fair to start asking questions."

Overseas, they have been asking them for some time. In recent years Europeans have become increasingly jumpy about bad food--and with good reason. Since the outbreak of mad-cow disease in 1996, the appearance of dioxin-contaminated Belgian chickens last spring and the later recall of contaminated cans of Coca-Cola in France and the Benelux nations, health officials have grown fussier about what their citizens consume--raising the doubts about GM food even higher.

Since 1990 the E.U. has approved the sale of 18 GM products. (The U.S. Government views GM components in foods as mere additives and thus does not require the FDA to approve them. Instead, it subjects them to a less formal review, a relatively low high-bar that's easy to clear.) This year the E.U. banned the importation of nonapproved GM corn. In the U.S., GM strains are mixed with ordinary strains, so the country's entire corn export to Europe was effectively outlawed. "Until we have new rules, we don't want new substances released," says Jurgen Trittin, Germany's Environment Minister. "It's a de facto moratorium."

But one country's moratorium is another country's protectionism, and the U.S. is suspicious of Europe's actions. Tension between the U.S. and the E.U. was already running high this summer after Europe decided to continue a ban on hormone-raised U.S. beef and the U.S. hit back with a 100% tariff on some E.U. food exports. Coming in the midst of such a catfight, the GM ban looks like vengeance as much as prudence. What's more, if Europe is so worried about GM foods, why is it growing them? France produces its own small crop of GM corn and uses more of the stuff than any other country in Europe.

The transatlantic food fight will probably be high on the agenda of the World Trade Organization when it meets in November--good news for companies like Monsanto. Two years ago, CEO Robert Shapiro gambled big on biotech, spinning off the company's chemical division to focus on the new science. While the move made Monsanto a Wall Street darling for a while, investors aren't as sweet on it anymore. A year ago, Monsanto stock perched at a lofty 63; today it's mired in the upper 30s.

Events in Washington could make things worse. Since lawmakers have not yet addressed the labeling question, private groups are hoping to take the lead. Organizations like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, along with Jewish and Muslim groups, have waded in, lobbying the FDA for labeling and in some cases filing suits to compel it. Their legal claim is bolstered by internal FDA memos in which the agency's own scientists expressed doubts about GM products. A scientist noted the "profound difference" between genetically engineered and traditional crops--though he stressed that different needn't mean dangerous.

Still, it's becoming clear in Washington that the labeling problem is not going away. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman admits that ultimately the activists will probably prevail. Glickman hopes that labels will not be written to alarm consumers but instead to inform them, letting them know that while a product was manufactured with the aid of genetic techniques, it can also, say, lower cholesterol.

For now, the most GM foes can hope to push through an agri-friendly Congress is a proposal for voluntary labeling that biotech companies would be free to honor or ignore. In a demand-driven market, however, they would ignore it at their peril. In Europe the Gerber baby-food company, a division of Novartis, gave in to anti-GM sentiments and announced that its products would no longer contain genetically modified ingredients. "This decision was not a safety issue," insists Novartis spokesman Mark Hill, "but rather a response to preferences expressed by our consumers." Not for the last time, to be sure, it's consumers who will have the final word.

--Reported by James Carney and Dick Thompson/Washington, Bruce Crumley/Paris and Maggie Sieger/Chicago

With reporting by James Carney and Dick Thompson/Washington, Bruce Crumley/Paris and Maggie Sieger/Chicago