tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/monsanto-7620/articlesMonsanto – The Conversation2023-02-22T12:55:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1993722023-02-22T12:55:04Z2023-02-22T12:55:04ZIn rural America, right-to-repair laws are the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510919/original/file-20230217-18-bzd402.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=140%2C101%2C5052%2C3355&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Waiting for repairs can cost farmers time and money.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/combine-harvester-moves-through-a-field-of-barley-grains-news-photo/1162778105">VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As tractors became more sophisticated over the past two decades, the big manufacturers allowed farmers fewer options for repairs. Rather than hiring independent repair shops, farmers have increasingly had to wait for company-authorized dealers to arrive. Getting repairs could take days, often leading to lost time and high costs.</p>
<p>A new <a href="https://www.fb.org/news-release/afbf-signs-right-to-repair-memorandum-of-understanding-with-john-deere">memorandum of understanding</a> between the country’s largest farm equipment maker, John Deere Corp., and the American Farm Bureau Federation is now raising hopes that U.S. farmers will finally regain the right to repair more of their own equipment. </p>
<p>However, supporters of right-to-repair laws suspect a more sinister purpose: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/10/1147934682/john-deere-right-to-repair-farmers-tractors">to slow the momentum</a> of efforts to secure right-to-repair laws around the country. </p>
<p>Under the agreement, John Deere promises to give farmers and independent repair shops access to manuals, diagnostics and parts. But there’s a catch – the agreement isn’t legally binding, and, as part of the deal, the influential Farm Bureau promised not to support any federal or state right-to-repair legislation.</p>
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<p>The right-to-repair movement has become the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power. Intellectual property protections, whether patents on farm equipment, crops, computers or cellphones, have become more intense in recent decades and cover more territory, giving companies more control over what farmers and other consumers can do with the products they buy. </p>
<p>For farmers, few examples of those corporate constraints are more frustrating than repair restrictions and patent rights that prevent them from saving seeds from their own crops for future planting.</p>
<h2>How a few companies became so powerful</h2>
<p>The United States’ market economy requires competition to function properly, which is why U.S. <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56116">antitrust policies were strictly enforced</a> in the post-World War II era.</p>
<p>During the 1970s and 1980s, however, political leaders began following the advice of a <a href="https://www.antitrustlawsource.com/2021/06/1990s-to-the-present-the-chicago-school-and-antitrust-enforcement/">group of economists</a> at the University of Chicago and relaxed <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1fx4h9c">enforcement of federal antitrust policies</a>. That led to a concentration of economic power in many sectors.</p>
<p>This concentration has become especially pronounced in agriculture, with a few companies <a href="https://farmaction.us/concentrationreport/">consolidating market share</a> in numerous areas, including seeds, pesticides and machinery, as well as commodity processing and meatpacking. One study in 2014 estimated that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, was responsible for approximately <a href="https://fortune.com/2014/06/26/monsanto-gmo-crops/">80% of the corn and 90% of the soybeans</a> grown in the U.S. In farm machinery, John Deere and Kubota account for about a third of the market.</p>
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<img alt="A tractor with several computer screens in the cab on the floor of a convention, with several people in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510917/original/file-20230217-28-unn1iv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">New tractors are increasingly high-tech, with GPS, 360-degree camera and smartphone controls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/inside-the-cab-of-the-deer-co-john-deere-8r-fully-news-photo/1237542314">Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Market power often translates into political power, which means that those large companies can influence regulatory oversight, legal decisions, and legislation that furthers their economic interests – including securing more expansive and stricter intellectual property policies.</p>
<h2>The right-to-repair movement</h2>
<p>At its most basic level, right-to-repair legislation seeks to protect the end users of a product from anti-competitive activities by large companies. New York <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-york-enacts-first-state-right-to-repair-law">passed the first broad right-to-repair law</a>, in 2022, and <a href="https://www.repair.org/stand-up">nearly two dozen states</a> have active legislation – about half of them <a href="https://apnews.com/article/agriculture-colorado-business-d5ea466725328d965a85a62130503d49">targeting farm equipment</a>.</p>
<p>Whether the product is an automobile, smartphone or seed, companies can extract more profits if they can force consumers to purchase the company’s replacement parts or use the company’s exclusive dealership to repair the product.</p>
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<p>One of the <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4247&context=law_lawreview">first cases</a> that challenged the right to repair equipment was in 1939, when a company that was reselling refurbished spark plugs was sued by the Champion Spark Plug Co. for violating its patent rights. The <a href="https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-champion-spark-plug-co-v-sanders">Supreme Court agreed</a> that Champion’s trademark had been violated, but it allowed resale of the refurbished spark plugs if “used” or “repaired” was stamped on the product.</p>
<p>Although courts have often sided with the end users in right-to-repair cases, large companies have vast legal and lobbying resources to argue for stricter patent protections. Consumer <a href="https://pirg.org/california/media-center/california-right-repair-bill-dies-senate-committee/">advocates contend</a> that these protections prevent people from repairing and modifying the products they rightfully purchased.</p>
<p>The ostensible justification for patents, whether for equipment or seeds, is that they provide an incentive for companies to invest time and money in developing products because they know that they will have exclusive rights to sell their inventions once patented.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-xg80-ct59">some scholars claim</a> that recent legal and legislative changes to patents are instead limiting innovation and social benefits. </p>
<h2>The problem with seed patents</h2>
<p>The extension of utility patents to agricultural seeds illustrates how intellectual property policies have expanded and become more restrictive.</p>
<p>Patents have been around since the founding of the U.S., but agricultural crops were initially considered natural processes that couldn’t be patented. That changed in 1980 with the U.S. Supreme Court decision <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/79-136">Diamond v. Chakrabarty</a>. The case involved genetically engineered bacteria that could break down crude oil. The court’s ruling allowed inventors to secure patents on living organisms.</p>
<p>Half a decade later, the U.S. Patent Office extended patents <a href="https://doi.org/10.3109/10731198909118281">to agricultural crops generated</a> through transgenic breeding techniques, which inserts a gene from one species into the genome of another. One prominent example is the insertion of a gene into corn and cotton that enables the plant to produce its own pesticide. In 2001, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2001/99-1996">included conventionally bred crops</a> in the category eligible for patenting.</p>
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<img alt="Seeds grow in segmented compartments of petri dishes. The dishes have writing in marker on the top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510918/original/file-20230217-364-qm2ktu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Genetically modified seeds, and even conventionally bred crops, can be patented.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/petri-dishes-containing-sprouting-embryos-of-an-news-photo/1314013422">Sean Gallup/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Historically, farmers would save seeds that their crops generated and replant them the following season. They could also sell those seeds to other farmers. They lost the right to sell their seeds in 1970, when Congress passed the <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/plant-variety-protection">Plant Variety Protection Act</a>. Utility patents, which grant an inventor exclusive right to produce a new or improved product, are even more restrictive.</p>
<p>Under a utility patent, farmers can no longer save seed for replanting on their own farms. University scientists even face <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470752555">restrictions on the kind of research</a> they can perform on patented crops.</p>
<p>Because of the clear changes in intellectual property protections on agricultural crops over the years, researchers are able to evaluate whether those changes correlate with crop innovations – the primary justification used for patents. The short answer is that they do not.</p>
<p>One study revealed that companies have used intellectual property to enhance their market power more than to enhance innovations. In fact, some vegetable crops with <a href="https://illinoislawreview.org/print/volume-2012-issue-4/veggie-tales-pernicious-myths-about-patents-innovation-and-crop-diversity-in-the-twentieth-century/">few patent protections had more varietal innovations</a> than crops with more patent protections.</p>
<h2>How much does this cost farmers?</h2>
<p>It can be <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/23395/genetically-engineered-crops-experiences-and-prospects">difficult to estimate</a> how much patented crops cost farmers. For example, farmers might pay more for the seeds but save money on pesticides or labor, and they might have higher yields. If market prices for the crop are high one year, the farmer might come out ahead, but if prices are low, the farmer might lose money. Crop breeders, meanwhile, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06892-3">envision substantial profits</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, it is difficult to calculate the costs farmers face from not having a right to repair their machinery. A machine breakdown that takes weeks to repair during harvest time could be catastrophic.</p>
<p>The nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group calculated that <a href="https://pirg.org/resources/repair-saves-families-big/">U.S. consumers could save</a> US$40 billion per year if they could repair electronics and appliances – about $330 per family.</p>
<p>The memorandum of understanding between John Deere and the Farm Bureau may be a step in the right direction, but it is not a substitute for right-to-repair legislation or the enforcement of antitrust policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leland Glenna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Corporations restrict what farmers can do with their own seeds, as well as their farm equipment when it breaks down.Leland Glenna, Professor of Rural Sociology and Science, Technology, and Society, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959332022-12-10T05:52:03Z2022-12-10T05:52:03ZClimate crisis in Africa exposes real cause of hunger – colonial food systems that leave people more vulnerable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499297/original/file-20221206-8597-1i0jaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zawadi Msafiri is seen in a withered maize crop field in Kilifi County, Kenya. The drought situation started in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Dong Jianghui/Xinhua via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the waning hours of the year’s biggest climate change conference – COP27 – we learned of a deal to create a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/countries-agree-loss-damage-fund-final-cop27-deal-elusive-2022-11-20/">loss and damage fund</a>. This is essentially a source of finance to compensate poor countries for the pain they are incurring because of climate change. An often-cited example of such suffering is the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa region, which has put some <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/november-2022/horn-africa-extreme-drought-deepens-hunger-region-facing-conflict">22 million people</a> at risk of severe hunger. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.undp.org/press-releases/statement-un-development-programme-administrator-achim-steiner-outcome-cop27-climate-negotiations">some</a> have heralded this agreement as long overdue <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/at-cop-27-joy-over-loss-and-damage-fund-is-tempered-by-reality-104497">climate reparations</a>, <a href="https://www.wri.org/news/statement-breakthrough-cop27-establishes-fund-aid-vulnerable-countries-facing-severe-climate?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=worldresources&utm_term=91a1d58e-bf89-4ceb-b8d4-863c6a3e917d&utm_content=&utm_campaign=cop27">others</a> point out that the loss and damage fund does nothing to address the root causes of climate change - fossil fuel emissions. </p>
<p>Here I seek to raise a different concern: this approach glosses over the fact that the types of food production systems that the global community has fostered in Africa leave the poorest more exposed and vulnerable to climatic variability and economic shocks. These food production systems refer to the ways people produce, store, process and distribute food, as well as the inputs into the system along the way.</p>
<p>Historically smallholder and women farmers have produced the lion’s share of food crops on the African continent. Over the past 60 years, global decision makers, big philanthropy, business interests and large swaths of the scientific community have focused on increased food production, trade, and energy intensive farming methods as the best way to address global and African hunger. </p>
<p>This approach to addressing hunger has failed to address food insecurity on the continent. Moderate to severe food insecurity affects nearly <a href="https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cc0640en">60% of Africans today</a>. It’s also resulted in food systems that are now more vulnerable to climate change. </p>
<p>The idea that the solution is to produce more dates back to the colonial period. It’s bad for the global environment, highly vulnerable to climate and energy shocks, and does not feed the poorest of the poor.</p>
<p>I approach this topic as a nature-society geographer who has spent his career studying agricultural development approaches and food systems in west and southern Africa. Through this work, I have come to see agroecology as more accessible to the poorest.</p>
<h2>Vulnerable food systems</h2>
<p>Each time there has been a global food crisis, variations on the formula of increased agricultural production, trade and energy intensive farming methods have been the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2020.1823838">favoured solution</a>. These include the first Green Revolution of the 1960s-1970s, commodity production and trade in the 1980s-1990s, the New Green Revolution for Africa and public-private partnerships in the 2000s-2010s.</p>
<p>Many scholars now understand that food security has <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919221001445">six dimensions</a>, of which only one is addressed by food production. </p>
<p>Looking at all six dimensions reveals the complex drivers of hunger. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>food availability - local production and net imports </p></li>
<li><p>access - the ability of households to acquire food that is available</p></li>
<li><p>utilisation - the cooking, water and sanitation facilities needed to prepare healthy food</p></li>
<li><p>stability of food prices and supplies over time</p></li>
<li><p>sustainability - the ability to produce food without undermining the resource base</p></li>
<li><p>agency – people’s ability to control their food systems, from production to consumption. </p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Decolonising African agriculture</h2>
<p>So, how did we get here?</p>
<p>Certain countries and businesses profit from productionist approaches to addressing hunger. These include, for example, Monsanto, which developed the herbicide <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jennifer-Clapp/publication/365767722_The_rise_of_big_food_and_agriculture_corporate_influence_in_the_food_system/links/63822891c2cb154d292d030b/The-rise-of-big-food-and-agriculture-corporate-influence-in-the-food-system.pdf">Round-Up</a>. Or the four companies (Archer-Daniels-Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus) that control <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/23/record-profits-grain-firms-food-crisis-calls-windfall-tax">70%-90% of the global grain trade</a>. </p>
<p>The productionist focus is also engrained in the agricultural sciences. Tropical agronomy, now known as “development agronomy”, was central to the colonial enterprise in Africa. The <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429351105-3/political-agronomy-101-william-moseley">main objective for colonial powers</a> was to transform local food systems. This pushed many African households away from subsistence farming and the production of food for local markets. Instead, they moved towards the cultivation of commodity crops needed to fuel European economic expansion, such as cotton in Mali, coffee in Kenya, and cacao in Côte d'Ivoire.</p>
<p>While forced labour was employed in some instances, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/geography/geography-general-interest/peasant-cotton-revolution-west-africa-cote-divoire-18801995?format=PB&isbn=9780521788830">head taxes</a> became the preferred strategy in many cases for facilitating commodity crop production. Forced to pay such taxes in cash or face jail time, African farmers begrudgingly started to produce cash crops, or went to work on nearby plantations.</p>
<h2>Loss of risk management practices</h2>
<p>Accompanying the transition to commodity crop production was a gradual loss of risk management practices like storage of surplus grain. Many farmers and herders in Africa have had to deal with highly variable rainfall patterns for centuries. This makes them some of the foremost experts on climate change adaptation. Farmers would also plant a diverse range of crops with different rainfall requirements. Herders moved across large areas in search of the best pastures. </p>
<p>In the name of progress, colonial regimes often <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41145912.pdf">encouraged herders to be less mobile throughout East Africa</a>. They also pushed farmers via taxation policies to store less grain in order to maximise commodity crop production. This opened up farmers to the full, deadly force of extended droughts, a <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820344454/silent-violence/">situation that is well documented in northern Nigeria</a>.</p>
<p>Many problematic approaches have continued in the post-colonial period. </p>
<p>Various <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0905717107">international and national policies</a> and programmes have encouraged African farmers to produce more crops, <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/brownjwa23&id=479&collection=journals&index=">using</a> imported seeds, pesticides and fertilisers in the name of development or hunger alleviation. </p>
<p>Even though African farmers may be producing more, they are left exposed to the ravages of variable climatic conditions. </p>
<h2>Agroecology and the way forward</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.fao.org/3/ca5602en/ca5602en.pdf">Agroecologists</a> can offer a different way forward. They seek to understand the ecological interactions between different crops, crops and the soil and atmosphere, and crops and insect communities. They seek to maintain soil fertility, minimise predation from pests and grow more crops without using chemical inputs. </p>
<p>Agroecologists often collaborate with and learn from farmers who have developed such practices over time and are in tune with local ecologies. This combination of experiential knowledge and formal science training makes agroecology a more decolonial science. It is also more accessible to the poor because there’s no need to buy expensive inputs or risk becoming indebted when crops fail.</p>
<p>The fact that agroecological farming is <a href="https://www.pambazuka.org/food-health/corporate-take-over-african-food-security">less expensive</a> has not been lost on the business community. They would lose out substantially if conventional farming approaches were no longer associated with hunger alleviation. </p>
<p>Furthermore, those in the agricultural sciences who have supported productionist approaches to hunger alleviation also see agroecology as a threat as it could lead to a decline of prestige and research funding.</p>
<p>There are signs that the global community may be on the <a href="https://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-hlpe/insights/news-insights/news-detail/Is-the-global-food-system-on-the-cusp-of-a-major-shift-/en">cusp of a major shift in thinking</a> with regard to food systems, climate change and hunger. </p>
<p>A global food crisis has led some to question why previous solutions have not worked. We also now have an emerging, more decolonial science of agroecology that is increasingly accepted within the <a href="https://ijsaf.org/index.php/ijsaf/article/view/27">United Nations system</a>. It’s backed by a powerful social movement that refused to back down when corporate agricultural interests tried to hijack the 2021 <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10806-022-09882-7">UN Food Systems Summit</a>. </p>
<p>In some cases, there are also large institutional <a href="https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/global-food-nutrition-security/topic/agroecology_en">donors</a> experimenting with agroecological approaches, something almost unheard of a decade ago. </p>
<p>Lastly, there is a new set of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-021-10247-5">leaders</a> within some African governments who understand what agroecology offers.</p>
<p>The ravages of climate change and hunger do not occur in isolation, but are part of the system we have built. That means we can build something different. The current crisis lays bare this problem and the right combination of new ideas, resources and political will can solve it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William G. Moseley receives funding from the US National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>The ravages of climate change and hunger do not occur in isolation, but are part of the system we have built.William G. Moseley, DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geography, Director of Food, Agriculture & Society Program, Macalester CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1741812022-01-26T13:27:04Z2022-01-26T13:27:04ZThe herbicide dicamba was supposed to solve farmers’ weed problems – instead, it’s making farming harder for many of them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442064/original/file-20220122-25-9rovsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5760%2C3794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soybean plants on an Arkansas farm. Those at left show signs of damage from dicamba; others at right were planted later in the season.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/at-david-wildys-soybean-fields-on-the-left-soybean-plants-news-photo/842398912">Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In October 2021 I was a guest on a popular podcast to discuss my recently published book, “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324002048">Seed Money: Monsanto’s Past and Our Food Future</a>,” which examines the agribusiness giant’s influence on the global food system. After the show, I got a lot of calls from around the world, but one really stood out to me: A farmer speaking on his cellphone from the seat of his combine in South Dakota as he harvested soybeans.</p>
<p>Farmers don’t like to stop tractors on good-weather days in the fall, but this was important. The caller wanted to talk about a chemical weedkiller called <a href="http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/dicamba_gen.html">dicamba</a> that had been sprayed on neighboring fields. He claimed it was damaging his crops. And he wasn’t alone.</p>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0492-0021">thousands of U.S. growers</a> reported to the Environmental Protection Agency that dicamba sprayed by other farmers – sometimes <a href="https://investigatemidwest.org/2020/10/29/epa-documents-show-dicamba-damage-worse-than-previously-thought/">up to a mile and a half away</a> – damaged crops in their fields. Complaints came from all over the country.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0492-0021">The list</a> of affected plants was astounding: sycamore, oak and elm trees; azaleas, black-eyed Susans and roses; garden tomatoes, peppers and peas. <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2020-0492-0003">According to an EPA memorandum</a>, there were 2,700 “dicamba incidents,” affecting about 3.6 million acres, in 2017. Two years later, the number of incidents ballooned to 3,300. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Farmers describe their concerns about dicamba damage in 2017.</span></figcaption>
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<p>This problem has been building for over five years, and the EPA acknowledges that the modest controls it has required, such as creating buffer zones around fields, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-releases-summary-dicamba-related-incident-reports-2021-growing-season">aren’t working</a>. But tighter curbs on use of dicamba aren’t likely before the 2022 growing season starts in the spring, because they would require a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-releases-summary-dicamba-related-incident-reports-2021-growing-season">complicated legal process</a>. </p>
<p>Why is it so hard to address this national problem? Answering that question requires looking back to 1996, when a revolution transformed American agriculture.</p>
<h2>From Roundup to dicamba</h2>
<p>Weeds have always been an expensive headache for farmers. A 2016 study estimated that if left uncontrolled, weeds would cut corn and soybean yields in North America roughly in half, causing <a href="https://wssa.net/wssa/weed/croploss-2/">US$43 billion in yearly economic losses</a> just from those two crops. One of the problems farmers face is that weeds are very good at evolving resistance to chemical products used to kill them, so herbicides lose their effectiveness over time.</p>
<p>Weed problems became especially bad in the late 1980s and early 1990s as widely used herbicides called ALS inhibitors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/074823379901500120">became less and less effective</a>. That’s why farmers were enthusiastic about Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” crops, first introduced in 1996. </p>
<p>These plants were engineered to resist heavy spraying of Monsanto’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/02/business/the-power-of-roundup-a-weed-killer-is-a-block-for-monsanto-to-build-on.html">blockbuster herbicide, Roundup</a>. Monsanto had developed and patented glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, in the 1970s, but the advent of Roundup Ready seeds made glyphosate sales explode.</p>
<p>It seemed like a magical system: Farmers could treat fields with glyphosate throughout the growing season without hurting their crops. For a few years, overall herbicide use dropped: Farmers used glyphosate in huge quantities, but stopped buying most other herbicides. </p>
<iframe frameborder="0" class="juxtapose" width="100%" height="500" src="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=80d6bc1c-7df5-11ec-abb7-b9a7ff2ee17c"></iframe>
<figure><figcaption><span class="caption">Use of glyphosate has increased dramatically since the introduction of Roundup Ready seeds starting in 1996 (move slider to compare 1995 and 2019 usage).</span></figcaption></figure>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19970714063108/http://www.monsanto.com/monpub/environment/monsantoear96/96earall.pdf">Monsanto asserted</a> that this approach would <a href="http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/weeds/weednews/roundupcottonad.htm">make farming more sustainable</a> by reducing long-term use of herbicides and pesticides – especially older, more toxic brands. Soon, however, the system started to falter. </p>
<p>In the early 2000s, scientists began reporting that weeds were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.4760">evolving resistance to Roundup</a>. In response, Monsanto rolled out a new generation of genetically engineered seeds that would make crops resistant to a wider array of older herbicides. Farmers could use these older products along with Roundup, improving their chances of killing most weeds.</p>
<p>One of the chemicals Monsanto bet on was dicamba, first introduced in the 1960s. In 2015 and 2016, the company began producing seeds <a href="https://www.roundupreadyxtend.com/products/pages/default.aspx">branded “Roundup Ready Xtend</a>” that were engineered to tolerate heavy spraying of both dicamba and glyphosate. The logic was that dicamba would eliminate glyphosate-resistant weeds, and glyphosate would wipe out all other unwanted vegetation.</p>
<h2>A solution becomes a problem</h2>
<p>It quickly became clear that this fix was seriously flawed. Dicamba is <a href="https://extension.umn.edu/herbicides/uncovering-dicambas-wayward-ways">one of the most volatile herbicides on the market</a>, meaning that it changes readily from a liquid to a vapor in warm temperatures. When farmers sprayed dicamba on hot days, it tended to vaporize and drift off target, spreading to fields and farms that often were not planted with crops genetically engineered to tolerate it. The South Dakota farmer who called me from his combine was harvesting organic soybeans that did not contain Monsanto’s Xtend traits. </p>
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<p>Maddeningly for farmers, Monsanto had seen this coming. In a 2020 federal court case, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/bader-farms-inc-v-monsanto-co-18">Bader Farms v. Monsanto</a>, confidential company documents revealed that the firm was aware that dicamba sprayed on Xtend crops would likely drift off target. Monsanto sales representatives even called this a sales point for dicamba-tolerant seeds. “Push ‘protection from your neighbor,’” one <a href="https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/dicamba-PLTF-22.pdf">slide in an internal 2013 sales presentation suggested</a>. </p>
<p>Farmers started complaining about dicamba drift soon after Monsanto introduced its first Xtend seeds. The Trump administration ordered farmers not to spray dicamba in buffer zones around fields, and to <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-10/documents/dicamba-decision_10-27-2020.pdf">restrict dicamba application to particular times of day</a>, but this had little effect. </p>
<p>Amid this controversy, the EPA extended approval in 2018 for three dicamba-based herbicides. But the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/125--dicamba-opinion_35970.pdf">revoked this decision in June 2020</a>, ruling that the agency had ignored or downplayed evidence of damage from dicamba and failed to consider how its licensed use would “tear the social fabric of farming communities.” In response, EPA approved new dicamba licenses with some <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-2020-dicamba-registration-decision">additional control measures</a> that it asserted met the court’s concerns.</p>
<h2>A chemical arms race</h2>
<p>Now the Biden administration is weighing how to address dicamba – and none too soon. Farmers reportedly are seeing weeds that have <a href="https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/crops/article/2021/07/03/weed-resistance-dicamba-2-4-d-rise">developed resistance to dicamba and other herbicides</a> recommended for use with a new generation of genetically engineered seeds. According to weed specialists, this is happening precisely because farmers are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/magazine/superweeds-monsanto.html">using such large quantities of these chemicals</a> during the growing season. </p>
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<p>Seed companies like the German firm Bayer, which now owns Monsanto’s product portfolio, say one solution is for farmers to buy seeds that can tolerate a wider array of weedkillers. Recently, for example, Bayer sought approval for a new line of seeds that would make crops resistant to <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/07/01/bayer-forges-ahead-with-new-crops-resistant-to-5-herbicides-glyphosate-dicamba-2-4-d-glufosinate-quizalofop/">five different types of herbicides</a>.</p>
<p>For farmers, this will mean greater reliance on an expanding array of petrochemicals, and therefore higher costs. Today, U.S. farmers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/business/gmo-promise-falls-short.html">use more than twice as much herbicide</a> to grow soybeans as they did before Roundup Ready crops were introduced. </p>
<p>I see dicamba drift as a symptom of a larger petrochemical dependency that threatens the viability of the U.S. food system. My research in this area makes clear that if federal agencies really want to help farmers solve weed problems, they would do well to look to agricultural innovators who are demonstrating that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2017.8">crops can be grown productively and profitably</a> without relying so heavily on synthetic pesticides. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>In the U.S. and around the world, farmers are seeking alternative ways to deal with weeds. Some are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0219847">diversifying what they grow</a>, using time-honored practices like <a href="https://www.farmers.gov/blog/conservation/discover-cover-managing-cover-crops-suppress-weeds-and-save-money-herbicides">cover cropping</a>, and looking to innovative methods coming out of a resurgent <a href="https://theconversation.com/regenerative-agriculture-can-make-farmers-stewards-of-the-land-again-110570">regenerative farming movement</a>. </p>
<p>If these tools can create a future agricultural economy less reliant on petrochemicals derived from finite resources, I believe it would be welcome news not just to farmers but also to those of us who depend on them for our food.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174181/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bart Elmore receives funding from the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and Columbia's University's School of Journalism.</span></em></p>Farmers are stuck in a chemical war against weeds, which have developed resistance to many widely used herbicides. Seed companies’ answer – using more varied herbicides – is causing new problems.Bart Elmore, Associate Professor of History and Core Faculty in the Sustainability Institute, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1254712019-10-31T12:54:51Z2019-10-31T12:54:51ZMonsanto wins $7.7b lawsuit in Brazil – but farmers’ fight to stop its ‘amoral’ royalty system will continue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299291/original/file-20191029-183120-1tjkoln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C48%2C3589%2C1950&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soybean farmers in Brazil sued Monsanto for a royalty collection system that they say violates their planting rights. A soybean harvest in Mato Grosso, Brazil, March 27, 2012. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Brazil-Economy/99a87b581a8b44d8b93c194b56cbd23d/13/0">AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A Brazilian appeals court has <a href="https://ww2.stj.jus.br/websecstj/cgi/revista/REJ.cgi/ITA?seq=1838988&tipo=0&nreg=201601710999&SeqCgrmaSessao=&CodOrgaoJgdr=&dt=20191014&formato=PDF&salvar=false">decided</a> in favor of Monsanto, the global agribusiness conglomerate, in a landmark class-action lawsuit filed by Brazilian farmers’ unions.</p>
<p>The court’s nine justices unanimously ruled on Oct. 9 that farmers cannot save seeds for replanting if the seeds are harvested from Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready soybeans, which are genetically engineered to withstand direct application of the company’s Roundup herbicide.</p>
<p>The Brazilian ruling aligns with <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-796_c07d.pdf">similar decisions in the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/2147/index.do">Canada</a>. Courts in all three countries determined that, as a product of genetic engineering, Roundup Ready soybeans are protected by domestic patent law.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://canalrural.uol.com.br/noticias/agricultura/soja/sindicatos-dizem-que-decisao-sobre-soja-transgenica-foi-injusta/">public statement</a>, Monsanto – which was <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-monsanto-bayer-will-need-more-aspirin-101667">acquired by Bayer</a> in 2018 – said the decision will strengthen “agricultural innovation in Brazil.” </p>
<p>How strict patenting of seeds affects innovation, however, is a <a href="http://www.srfood.org/images/stories/pdf/officialreports/20091021_report-ga64_seed-policies-and-the-right-to-food_en.pdf">matter of debate</a>. And the lawsuits challenging Monsanto’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/12/monsanto-sues-farmers-seed-patents">aggressive pursuit of its patent rights</a> raise a vexed legal issue: When intellectual property laws that protect companies conflict with the rights of farmers to plant their fields, who should win? </p>
<h2>Monsanto ‘owns everything’</h2>
<p>The Brazilian lawsuit is a sign of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02255189.2012.719826?journalCode=rcjd20">growing uneasiness</a> with the control Monsanto has over farmers, my <a href="https://graduateinstitute.ch/academic-departments/faculty/karine-peschard">research</a> on <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2019.1578752?journalCode=fjps20">biotechnology and seeds</a> finds.</p>
<p>Founded as a chemical manufacturer in 1901, Monsanto has invested heavily in agricultural biotechnology to become the <a href="https://www.accesstoseeds.org/app/uploads/2018/07/Top20GlobalSeed.pdf">world’s largest seller of seeds</a>. Its biotech seeds have proved attractive to farmers because they <a href="https://www.globalagriculture.org/fileadmin/files/weltagrarbericht/IAASTDBerichte/IAASTDExecutiveSummarySynthesisReport.pdf">simplify farm management</a>. Monsanto says its genetically modified seeds also <a href="https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2018/02/gmo-crops-increasing-yield-20-years-progress-ahead/">increase crop yields</a>, and thus farmer income – but evidence on this subject is <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/failure-yield-evaluating-performance-genetically-engineered-crops">not probative</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299289/original/file-20191029-183147-a36drj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Monsanto’s genetically modified corn seeds, sold under the brand DeKalb, are widely used in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Earns-Monsanto/272c5fe829954ebc9a531a4b1acf0703/3/0">AP Photo/Seth Perlman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the United States and Canada, Monsanto requires buyers of its genetically modified seeds to <a href="https://www.monsantoglobal.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/tug_sample.pdf">sign extensive licensing contracts</a> that prevent them from saving seeds. North American farmers who violate those agreements have been sued for <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/files/seed-giants_final_04424.pdf">patent infringement</a> and compelled to pay <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-lawsuit/monsanto-wins-lawsuit-against-indiana-soybean-farmer-idUSTRE78K79O20110921">tens of thousands of dollars in damages</a>.</p>
<p>In Brazil, Monsanto charges 2% royalties on the sale of its patented soybeans, a <a href="https://www.plantvarietyrights.org/plant-variety-rights.html">conventional industry practice</a>. More unusually, the company charges an additional royalty – 3% of farmers’ sales – when soybeans are <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/monsanto-may-lose-gm-soya-royalties-throughout-brazil-1.10837">grown from saved Roundup Ready seeds</a>.</p>
<p>Soybeans are <a href="https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bra/">Brazil’s biggest export</a>. The royalties in dispute in the class action, which is likely to be <a href="https://canalrural.uol.com.br/noticias/agricultura/soja/sindicatos-dizem-que-decisao-sobre-soja-transgenica-foi-injusta/">appealed to the Brazilian Supreme Court</a>, are estimated at <a href="https://coad.jusbrasil.com.br/noticias/3148934/royalties-da-monsanto-acao-de-sojicultores-tem-alcance-nacional">US$7.7 billion</a>.</p>
<p>“I can’t stand it anymore – seeing those Monsanto people showing up at the grain elevator and behaving as if they own everything,” one grain cooperative manager told the Brazilian Congress during a special commission on agriculture I attended in December 2017.</p>
<h2>‘Amoral’ royalty collection</h2>
<p>The Brazilian appeals court’s Oct. 9 decision reverses a past ruling establishing the rights of small farmers in Brazil. </p>
<p>In their original petition, farmers’ unions in 2009 asserted that Monsanto’s royalty collection system is arbitrary, illegal and abusive. They argued that it extends Monsanto’s intellectual property rights to their own production and violates their right to freely save seeds for replanting, as guaranteed under <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/LEIS/L9456.htm">Brazil’s Plant Variety Protection Act</a>.</p>
<p>In April 2012, a <a href="http://www.ihu.unisinos.br/noticias/508274-justica-condena-monsanto-por-cobranca-indevida-de-royalties-">civil court agreed with the farmers</a>, affirming their rights to save seeds and sell their harvests as food or raw material <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/monsanto-may-lose-gm-soya-royalties-throughout-brazil-1.10837">without paying royalties</a>.</p>
<p>Monsanto got this ruling <a href="https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/tj-rs-permite-monsanto-cobrar-royalties.pdf">overturned</a> on appeal. The Brazilian farmers’ unions then appealed that decision, leading to the Oct. 9 ruling against them.</p>
<p>“Monsanto is amoral,” Luiz Fernando Benincá, a soybean producer and litigant in the class action suit told me in January 2017. “It will do anything for profits.”</p>
<h2>Controversial products and practices</h2>
<p>Monsanto is accustomed to litigation. Several of its other products - such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/agent-orange-exposed-how-u-s-chemical-warfare-in-vietnam-unleashed-a-slow-moving-disaster-84572">Agent Orange</a>, the synthetic chemicals <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41271-018-0146-8">PCBs</a> and, more recently, the glyphosate-based herbicide <a href="https://usrtk.org/monsanto-papers/">Roundup</a> - have been embroiled in <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-07-monsanto-controversial-chemicals.html">legal controversies</a>.</p>
<p>For decades, the St. Louis-based company, valued at <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/bayer-closes-monsanto-deal-to-cap-63-billion-transformation">$63 billion last year</a>, used its deep pockets and large teams of lawyers to <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Let-289-million-jury-award-stand-in-Monsanto-case-13303640.php">intimidate farmers and defeat opponents</a> in courts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299305/original/file-20191029-183098-8sna6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Due to concerns about its links with cancer, the Monsanto herbicide Roundup has been removed from many stores in the U.S. and Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/16450976717">Jeepers Media/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From 1997 to 2018 Monsanto won <a href="https://moncom.direct.parado.cz/company/media/statements/lawsuits-against-farmers/">every single intellectual property lawsuit that went to trial in the U.S. and Canada</a>.</p>
<p>It has had less success abroad. Courts in Argentina, the European Union and other countries with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1191471">stronger farmers’ rights</a> have <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=D6BF3A1F6F5F456F46D1F3E5AEF161F2?text=&docid=80491&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=6005413">checked</a> the company’s <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-and-human-rights-journal/article/monsantos-legal-strategy-in-argentina-from-a-human-rights-perspective/C0AC30A28DAAFCC3664D38D8B587911C">aggressive use of royalties</a> to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41806618?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">profit off the byproducts of patented products</a>. </p>
<p>Judges in these cases confront a tricky legal issue. </p>
<p>In theory, a genetically engineered DNA sequence like the one that confers herbicide resistance to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soybeans can be protected under patent law. Yet the plant variety in which the genetic sequence is introduced may also be legally protected, as it is under Brazil’s Plant Variety Protection Act.</p>
<p>In practice, however, it is virtually impossible to separate genetically engineered DNA sequences from the rest of the physical plant. So the two laws – one recognizing the rights of farmers to save seeds for replanting in their fields, the other protecting Monsanto’s intellectual property – conflict with each other.</p>
<h2>Defend farmers or protect corporations?</h2>
<p>Faced with this conundrum, the <a href="http://www.ielrc.org/content/n0407.htm">Canadian</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/business/monsanto-victorious-in-genetic-seed-case.html">U.S. Supreme Courts</a> have ruled that the exclusive rights of a patent holder over plant genetic sequences extend to the plants themselves, thereby allowing companies like Monsanto to prohibit farmers from saving seeds. </p>
<p>Brazil has effectively agreed with this interpretation – for now. The lawyer for the Brazilian farmers unions, Néri Perin, says the ruling “disregards Brazil’s <a href="http://www.fao.org/plant-treaty/areas-of-work/farmers-rights/en/">international commitment</a> to guarantee farmers’ rights.” </p>
<p>But more troubles await Bayer-Monsanto. </p>
<p>In a separate lawsuit, Brazilian soybean farmers are challenging the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-patent-litigation/germanys-bayer-dealt-new-legal-blow-as-more-brazil-farmers-challenge-soy-patent-idUSKCN1UO22N">validity of Monsanto’s patent on second-generation Roundup Ready soybeans</a>. In India, the <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/corporate-news/sc-lobs-monsanto-bt-cotton-patent-infringement-issue-back-to-delhi-hc/articleshow/67446910.cms">courts have been asked to rule</a> on the validity of Monsanto’s patent for a cotton variety genetically engineered to be insect resistant.</p>
<p>Monsanto has long had the upper hand over the farmers who use its products. But the momentum may be shifting.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karine Peschard has received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation.</span></em></p>Farmers worldwide say Monsanto’s policy of charging for every use of its genetically modified seeds violates their planting rights. But judges in these patent law cases aren’t so sure.Karine Eliane Peschard, Anthropologist and Research Associate, Graduate Institute – Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement (IHEID)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1139982019-03-22T18:19:31Z2019-03-22T18:19:31ZDoes Monsanto’s Roundup cause cancer? The law says yes, the science says maybe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265333/original/file-20190322-36276-hnz03n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Law and science seek proof in similar ways, but at very different speeds</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-book-library-stethoscope-on-open-763907971">Chinnapong/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A federal jury in California has unanimously decided that the weedkiller Roundup was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/business/monsanto-roundup-cancer.html">a “substantial factor</a>” in causing the lymphoma of 70-year-old Edwin Hardeman, who had used Roundup on his property for many years, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707439575/jury-awards-80-million-in-damages-in-roundup-weed-killer-cancer-trial">awarded Hardeman US$80 million in damages</a>. This is the second such verdict in less than eight months. In August 2018 another jury concluded that groundskeeper DeWayne Johnson <a href="https://theconversation.com/jury-finds-monsanto-liable-in-the-first-roundup-cancer-trial-heres-what-could-happen-next-101433">developed cancer due to his exposure to Roundup</a>, and ordered Monsanto, the manufacturer, to pay Johnson nearly US$300 million in damages.</p>
<p>In product liability cases like these, plaintiffs must prove that the product <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3006278">was the “specific cause” of the harm done</a>. The law sets a very high bar, which may be unrealistic for harms such as a diagnosis of cancer. Nonetheless, two juries have now ruled against Roundup. </p>
<p>Monsanto’s lawyers insist that <a href="https://monsanto.com/news-stories/statements/roundup-glyphosate-dewayne-johnson-trial/">Roundup is safe</a> and that the plaintiffs’ arguments in both cases were <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Monsanto-s-Roundup-found-by-jury-to-be-likely-13701218.php">scientifically flawed</a>. But jurors believed that they were shown enough evidence to meet the legal criteria for finding Roundup was the “specific cause” of cancer in both men.</p>
<p>As a result of these high-profile trials, Los Angeles County has <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/LA-County-Halts-Use-of-Popular-Weed-Killer-on-County-Property-507399471.html">halted use of Roundup</a> by all of its departments until clearer evidence is available about its potential health and environmental effects.</p>
<p>Although “proof” has a similar primary meaning in science and law – a consensus of experts – how it is achieved is often quite different. Most importantly, in science there is no deadline for a discovery, whereas in law, timeliness is paramount. The conundrum is that a legal decision may be required for a potentially dangerous product on the market before the science has been settled.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/265334/original/file-20190322-36256-e7ymew.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">DeWayne Johnson hugs one of his lawyers after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto in San Francisco on Aug. 10, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Roundup-Weed-Killer-Cancer/0bad759c98b644da9ff243d435347ddf/30/0">Josh Edelson/Pool Photo via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is ‘proof’?</h2>
<p>Proof is an elusive concept. Do we need proof that our glimpse of stripes in the jungle is a tiger before we run? Do we need proof that the jet engines are reliable before clearing a plane to take off for London with 300 passengers on board? </p>
<p>Can proof ever be absolute, or is it inherently a statement of probabilities?</p>
<p>Scientists use proof to advance our understanding of nature. Science assumes that there is an objective reality underlying all of nature, which we can eventually understand. Nature has no moral compass: It is neither good nor bad – it simply is. Scientists are human, so they experience joy or disappointment depending on the outcome of an experiment, but those emotions do not alter the truths of nature.</p>
<p>In contrast, lawyers use proof to find justice for people. Law is built on the premise that there are widely accepted codes of human behavior, which should be rectified when they are violated. Ideally, justice under the law is a highly moral endeavor with fairness at its core.</p>
<h2>Proof in science</h2>
<p>Scientists vigorously argue about whether an experiment proves a new detail in the vast tapestry of nature. Most scientists require that a new experimental finding is reproducible, statistically significant and plausible within the context of experiments that came before it. </p>
<p>But often conventional wisdom, based on what had been proven in the past, is wrong. </p>
<p>For example, until the 1980s medical wisdom said the cause of stomach ulcers was too much acid secretion. Therefore, young doctors learned in medical school to treat ulcers with antacids, milk and a bland diet. Then in 1983 a couple of troublemaking Australians named Robin Warren and Barry Marshall suggested that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(83)92719-8">a bacterium actually caused ulcers</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, this was not believed to be possible because no bacterium could survive in the highly acidic environment of the stomach. Marshall and Warren were widely ridiculed after their article appeared, and <a href="https://www.csicop.org/si/show/bacteria_ulcers_and_ostracism_h._pylori_and_the_making_of_a_myth">heckled at conferences</a> where they presented the idea. However, other scientists became interested and started to investigate the alternative theory. </p>
<p>New evidence accumulated over the next decade and ultimately proved that Marshall and Warren were right. They received the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2005/press-release/">Nobel Prize in Medicine</a> in 2005. Today the bacterium, <em>H. pylori</em>, is believed not only to cause ulcers but also <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijc.28999">most stomach cancers worldwide</a>.</p>
<h2>Proof in law</h2>
<p>To reveal the facts of a legal dispute, lawyers engage in adversarial argument. Attorneys for each side argue from their client’s perspective, without claiming to be objective. In an ideal world, with diligent and honest attorneys on both sides, justice should prevail. Often, however, a case is not ideal. </p>
<p>In some product liability lawsuits it can be perfectly clear that a faulty product, such as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/27/business/takata-airbags-automakers-class-action.html">rupture-prone Takata airbags</a> that car manufacturers were forced to recall several years ago, caused a plaintiff’s injury. However, as I wrote in connection with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-monsantos-roundup-cause-cancer-trial-highlights-the-difficulty-of-proving-a-link-100875">first Roundup lawsuit</a>, this is close to impossible to prove in cancer cases.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BnU3sidMlls?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Product liability is the area of law in which consumers can bring claims against manufacturers and sellers for products that injure people.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>DeWayne Johnson’s lawsuit against Monsanto turned on a 2015 scientific assessment from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an agency of the World Health Organization, classifying glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup – as a “2A: probable human carcinogen.” However, this finding does not mean that Roundup “probably” caused Johnson’s lymphoma. </p>
<p>The European Food Safety Authority, an equally authoritative deliberative body, also assessed glyphosate, concluding that it was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-017-1962-5">unlikely to pose a cancer risk</a> and actual exposure levels did not represent a public health concern. This study considered much of the same evidence as the International Agency for Research on Cancer, but interpreted it differently.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the jury concluded that Roundup had caused Johnson’s cancer and awarded $289 million in damages, which was reduced to $80 million on appeal. Clearly, in their view, there was sufficient “proof” for the case against Roundup. </p>
<h2>Different kinds of expertise</h2>
<p>In science, proof can only be defined as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-monsantos-roundup-cause-cancer-trial-highlights-the-difficulty-of-proving-a-link-100875">consensus of experts</a> who agree that the facts overwhelmingly support a specific conclusion. In law the jury plays that role, with jurors expected to become experts in the case. </p>
<p>This means, of course, that what has been proven in science or in law can be unproven with new evidence or new experts. </p>
<p>Many big questions in physics, geology and biology have taken centuries to answer, and scientists constantly re-evaluate those answers in light of new evidence. For example, in the 1930s physicists widely agreed that there were three fundamental particles: electrons, protons and neutrons. Today the <a href="https://home.cern/science/physics/standard-model">standard model of physics</a> holds that there are at least a dozen elementary particles, with many others hypothesized but not yet proven to exist.</p>
<p>Legal judgments have much more immediate impacts – sometimes life or death. Justice delayed is justice denied, and jurors must agree on a final proof to deliver a verdict. But as history has painfully taught us, a rush to judgment can yield the opposite of equity. Glyphosate <a href="https://www.glyphosate.eu/benefits">provides many benefits</a>, which must be weighed against the potential for harm.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fMlN--8FhTY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company, faces potentially enormous liability from thousands of lawsuits claiming Roundup gave plaintiffs cancer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, what is a juror in the next Roundup trial to do? As I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-monsantos-roundup-cause-cancer-trial-highlights-the-difficulty-of-proving-a-link-100875">argued previously</a>, “specific causation” for cancer can almost never be proved. </p>
<p>However, that does not mean that a plaintiff has no case. If the formal standard in law were changed to “<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/faqspoc.html">probability of causation</a>” as used by the Centers for Disease Control for occupational cancers, then a jury could find a product guilty of substantially increasing the risk, and make an award for the plaintiff, potentially a large one. In my view, if this were the standard, future rulings like the two we have already seen would align law and science on this issue more closely.</p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to include the $80 million damage award in the second Roundup lawsuit.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What is proof? In both law and science, it’s basically a consensus of experts – but they work at very different speeds. That means juries may reach verdicts on an issue before the science is settled.Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens, Professor, School of Medicine, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1055592018-10-26T10:46:27Z2018-10-26T10:46:27ZRoundup weed killer lawsuit hits a snag, but Monsanto is not off the hook<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242360/original/file-20181025-71020-e1khvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bottles of Monsanto's Roundup weed killer in the United Kingdom, relabelled by activists to highlight the World Health Organization's judgment that its main ingredient is a probable carcinogen.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/GMTxeG">Global Justice Now</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Aug. 10, 2018, a San Francisco jury handed down a US$289 million award to Dewayne Johnson, a groundskeeper who is dying of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Johnson sued Monsanto, the maker of the weed killer Roundup, claiming that glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup – caused his cancer. The jury awarded Johnson $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million dollars in punitive damages. </p>
<p>Now, in response to a request from Monsanto for a new trial, Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bolanos has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/health/monsanto-judge-final-ruling-dewayne-johnson-case/index.html">partially overturned</a> that verdict. Judge Bolanos let stand the jury’s finding that Roundup caused Johnson’s cancer, but decided that the punitive damage award was too high, and offered Johnson two alternatives: accept $39 million in punitive damages ($78 million in total), or submit to a new trial on the punitive damages. The compensatory damages of $39 million would remain intact either way.</p>
<p>This new twist in the case highlights key questions in tort litigation: What is the meaning of “proof of causation,” and what constitutes fair compensation once “cause” has been “proven”? My field, cancer epidemiology, has developed ways to think about causation, but we still <a href="https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/e-learning/epidemiology/practitioners/causation-epidemiology-association-causation">struggle with defining it</a> for individual patients. Whenever epidemiology is used in court, an added layer of complexity comes from issues of human suffering and fairness to the individual plaintiff.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x000RkDAIkc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In 2017, 22 women and their families were awarded $4.7 billion in a lawsuit claiming that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson contained asbestos and gave the women ovarian cancer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A cascade of syllogisms</h2>
<p>There are several crucial steps in product liability litigation, each of which depends on a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism">syllogism</a>. If a person is injured, then there must be a cause. If the cause was a company’s product, then that company should pay compensation. If the company knew, or had a good reason to suspect, that the product was dangerous, then the company should be punished and required to pay punitive monetary damages.</p>
<p>Glyphosate was classified as a probable human carcinogen in 2015 by the <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a> (IARC), which is part of the <a href="http://www.who.int/">World Health Organization</a>. That classification was one cornerstone of Johnson’s lawsuit. The other cornerstone was a series of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/business/monsantos-sway-over-research-is-seen-in-disclosed-emails.html">internal Monsanto documents</a> which seemingly implied that the company knew or suspected that glyphosate was dangerous.</p>
<p>The jury was persuaded that Johnson’s cancer was caused by Roundup, and that Monsanto had known it was dangerous for a long time. Each of these decisions, of course, was a matter of opinion. That’s how the legal system works to <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-monsantos-roundup-cause-cancer-trial-highlights-the-difficulty-of-proving-a-link-100875">“prove” cause and effect</a>. Some jurors felt so strongly about their verdict that they <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-upholds-monsanto-verdict-cuts-award-78-million-58675789">wrote to Judge Bolanos</a> urging her not to overturn it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242369/original/file-20181025-71038-m3h3ib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson (center) takes press questions after the initial verdict in his lawsuit against Monsanto, Aug. 10, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Roundup-Weed-Killer-Cancer/a9b2fda45b8348fcac34ee2dff26dde4/2/0">AP Photo/Paul Elias, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h1>Probability of causation in cancer cases</h1>
<p>The legal claims against Roundup are torts – cases that one private party brings against another seeking compensation for some kind of harm. Under <a href="http://www.nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-92-number-4/mass-tort-class-actions-past-present-and-future">current tort law</a>, plaintiffs must prove an action by the defendant caused them a specific harm. </p>
<p>For example, if a new automobile is sold with faulty brakes and someone is injured as a result, specific causation is easy to determine, and the car’s manufacturer is liable for compensatory damages. If the manufacturer knew the brakes were faulty, then punitive damages would also be awarded.</p>
<p>But it is much more difficult to determine a specific cause for a cancer diagnosis. Heavy smoking greatly increases risk of lung cancer, but it is impossible to prove that an individual smoker’s lung cancer was due to smoking, since even lifelong nonsmokers sometimes get lung cancer. There is no reliable laboratory test to identify the specific cause of an individual cancer.</p>
<p>In such cases, the question becomes the “risk of harm,” as opposed to “specific causation.”</p>
<p>In the scientific world, the idea of “risk of harm” is analogous to the concept of “probability of causation,” or PC, which the <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/">National Cancer Institute</a> has developed over the last several decades to assess cancer risks associated with <a href="https://radiationcalculators.cancer.gov/">exposure to ionizing radiation</a>. These risk estimates are based in part on the long-term risk of cancer in survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242378/original/file-20181025-71038-m1aiuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many U.S. crops, like this field of sugar beets, are grown from ‘Roundup Ready’ seeds that have been genetically engineered to resist the herbicide. This allows farmers to use Roundup widely to kill weeds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Biotech-Beets/3798bf98589a4315b1b21e78631f2b99/7/0">AP Photo/Ed Andrieski, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>PC values are used in determining worker’s compensation awards. If a worker at a nuclear power plant develops leukemia and his or her cumulative radiation exposure over the years as measured by a badge dosimeter exceeds a certain threshold, then the worker’s leukemia is deemed probably to be the result of radiation exposure, and compensation is warranted.</p>
<p>This approach could be useful in product liability lawsuits when the harm is development of cancer or some other terrible chronic disease for which “specific causation” is unknowable. It would involve two important steps. First, jurors would need to understand the risk analysis itself: What data are used, what assumptions are made, and what statistical modeling was applied?</p>
<p>If the analysis is deemed to be credible, the next thorny issue is determining what threshold should trigger damage awards. If juries believe there was a 10 percent chance that a product gave a plaintiff cancer, should the manufacturer pay? This seems too low, but requiring 99 percent certainty seems unattainable. Perhaps a reasonable threshold would be a 51 percent chance – in other words, more likely than not.</p>
<h1>In praise of litigation</h1>
<p>Tort litigation today does not require juries to meet such precise standards. Nonetheless, despite its inefficiencies and occasional injustices, I believe it is <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-praise-of-litigation-9780199380800?cc=us&lang=en&">an important part of American society</a>, and has often led to changes in policy and regulations that have benefited the public. </p>
<p>One well-known example is the case of groundwater contamination and leukemia in the town of <a href="https://serc.carleton.edu/woburn/Case_summary.html">Woburn, Massachusetts, in the mid-1980s</a>. Residents sued two large corporations for groundwater contamination from their operations, which they asserted had caused several cases of leukemia. The lawsuit resulted in a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/76093/a-civil-action-by-jonathan-harr/9780679772675/">book</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120633/">movie</a>, both titled “A Civil Action.” It also resulted in an <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/region1/superfund/sites/wellsgh/over.html">Environmental Protection Agency investigation</a> and then <a href="https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/case-summary-epa-receives-over-54-million-wr-grace-bankruptcy">prosecution</a>, including what was at the time the <a href="https://www.joc.com/four-companies-pay-69-million-cleanup_19910709.html">largest settlement paid in the history of the Superfund program in New England</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242380/original/file-20181025-71011-4w10ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plaintiffs in the Woburn trial sought to link contamination of city water wells from dumping like this to a cluster of leukemia cases in their town.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/PH/Woburn/Woburn_print.html">Boston University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the Woburn case demonstrated, tort litigation can be a costly and time-consuming process. Many <a href="https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/top-ten-frivolous-lawsuits">lawsuits are frivolous</a>, which compounds the cost. The system <a href="https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/what-is-tort-reform-35441">can certainly be improved</a>, and efforts to do so are ongoing.</p>
<p>But in the end, tort litigation is one of the few avenues available for compensation from large corporations that do the wrong thing and hurt people. And sometimes it can lead to real changes in rules and regulations that will protect the public in general. </p>
<p>It’s too soon to tell whether lawsuits against Monsanto will have limited impact or radically change how Roundup is marketed and used. But the twists and turns in Dewayne Johnson’s case have raised important questions about risk, causation and liability. And this latest ruling suggests that they will not be resolved anytime soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105559/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thousands of people are suing Monsanto, claiming that its Roundup herbicide gave them cancer. A California judge has reduced the first damage award but let the verdict against Monsanto stand.Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens, Professor, School of Medicine, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1045542018-10-08T07:08:28Z2018-10-08T07:08:28ZStop worrying and trust the evidence: it’s very unlikely Roundup causes cancer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239671/original/file-20181008-72103-8as2pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Roundup is the most common weed killer used worldwide.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The common weed killer <a href="http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/glyphogen.html">Roundup</a> (glyphosate) is back in the news after a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/dying-cancer-patient-awarded-a395m-in-monsanto-roundup-case-20180811-p4zwww.html">US court ruled</a> it contributed to a man’s terminal cancer (non-Hodgkin lymphoma). Following the court’s order for manufacturer Monsanto to compensate the former school ground’s keeper US$289 million, more than 9,000 people are reportedly also suing the company.</p>
<p>In light of this, Cancer Council Australia is calling for <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-11/cancer-council-monsanto-should-come-clean/10109760">Australia to review glyphosate’s safety</a>. And tonight’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/">Four Corner’s</a> report centres around Monsanto’s possible cover-up of the evidence for a link between glyphosate and cancer.</p>
<p>Juries don’t decide science, and this latest court case produced no new scientific data. Those who believe glyphosate causes cancer often refer to the 2015 report by the <a href="http://publications.iarc.fr/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Evaluation-Of-Carcinogenic-Risks-To-Humans/Some-Organophosphate-Insecticides-And-Herbicides-2017">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a> (IARC) that classified the herbicide as “probably carcinogenic to humans”.</p>
<p>IARC’s conclusion was arrived at using a narrower base of evidence than other recent peer-reviewed papers and governmental reviews. Australia’s regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (<a href="https://apvma.gov.au/">APVMA</a>), reviewed the safety of glyphosate after IARC’s determination. It’s <a href="https://apvma.gov.au/node/13891">2016 report</a> concluded that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>based on current risk assessment the label instructions on all glyphosate products – when followed – provides adequate protection for users.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29136183">Agricultural Health Study</a>, which followed more than 50,000 people in the US for over ten years, was published in 2018. This real world study in the populations with the highest exposure to glyphosate showed that if there is any risk of cancer from glyphosate preparations, it is exceedingly small. </p>
<p>It also showed that the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma is negligible. It is unclear to what extent this study was used in the recent court case.</p>
<h2>What did the IARC and others find?</h2>
<p>Glyphosate is one of the most used herbicides worldwide. It kills weeds by targeting a specific pathway (the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikimate_pathway">shikimic acid pathway</a>) that exists in plants and a type of bacteria (eubacteria), but not animals (or humans). </p>
<p>In terms of short-term exposure, glyphosate is less toxic than table salt. However, it’s chronic, or long-term, exposure to glyphosate that’s causing the controversy. </p>
<p>Pesticides and herbicides are periodically re-evaluated for their safety and several studies have done so for glyphosate. For instance, in 2015, Germany’s <a href="https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/the_bfr_has_finalised_its_draft_report_for_the_re_evaluation_of_glyphosate-188632.html">Federal Institute for Risk Assessment</a> suggested glyphosate was neither mutagenic nor carcinogenic.</p>
<p>But then came the IARC’s surprising classification. And the subsequent 2015 review by the <a href="https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302">European Food Safety Authority</a>, that concluded glyphosate was unlikely to pose a carcinogenic hazard, didn’t alleviate sceptics. </p>
<p>The key differences between the IARC’s and other reports revolve around the breadth of evidence considered, the weight of human studies, consideration of physiological plausibility and, most importantly, risk assessment. The IARC did not take into account the extent of exposure to glyphosate to establish its association with cancer, while the others did.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/council-workers-spraying-the-weed-killer-glyphosate-in-playgrounds-wont-hurt-your-children-54831">Council workers spraying the weed-killer glyphosate in playgrounds won't hurt your children</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Demonstrating the mechanism</h2>
<p>Establishing whether a chemical can cause cancer in humans involves demonstrating a mechanism in which it can do so. Typical investigations examine if the chemical causes mutations in bacteria or damage to the DNA of mammalian cells.</p>
<p>The studies reviewed by IARC, and the other bodies mentioned, that looked at glyphosate’s ability to produce mutations in bacteria and to mammalian cells were negative. The weight of evidence also indicated glyphosate was unlikely to cause significant DNA damage.</p>
<h2>Animal studies</h2>
<p>Animal studies are typically conducted in rats or mice. The rodents are given oral doses of glyphosate for up to 89% of their life spans, at concentrations much higher than humans would be exposed to. </p>
<p>Studies examined by the <a href="https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302">European Food Safety Authority</a> included nine rat studies where no cancers were seen. Out of five mouse studies, three showed no cancers even at the highest doses. One study showed tumours, but these were not dose dependent (suggesting random variation, not causation) and in one study tumours were seen at highest doses in males only. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239674/original/file-20181008-72130-z8h3sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glyphosate works by disrupting a pathway that exists in plants but not animals or humans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This led to the European Food Safety Authority’s overall conclusion that glyphosate was unlikely to be a carcinogenic hazard to humans.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://monographs.iarc.fr/iarc-monographs-on-the-evaluation-of-carcinogenic-risks-to-humans-4/">IARC</a> evaluation included only six rat studies. In one study, cancer was seen but this wasn’t dose dependent (again suggesting random variation). They evaluated only two mouse studies, one of which was negative for cancer and that showed a statistically significant “trend” in males. </p>
<p>The IARC thus concluded there was sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in animals but there was no consistency in tumour type (mouse vs rat) or location.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-common-garden-chemicals-a-health-risk-65643">Are common garden chemicals a health risk?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Human studies</h2>
<p>This is an enormous field so I can only briefly summarise the research. The <a href="https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4302">European Food Safety Authority </a> looked at 21 human studies and found no evidence for an association between cancer and glyphosate use. The <a href="https://monographs.iarc.fr/iarc-monographs-on-the-evaluation-of-carcinogenic-risks-to-humans-4/">IARC</a> looked at 19 human trials and found no statistically significant evidence for an association with cancer. It did find three small studies that suggested an association with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (not statistically significant).</p>
<p>As already mentioned, the large Agricultural Health Study found no association between cancer and glyphosate in humans. And the 2016 review by Australia’s regulator concluded glyphosate was safe if used as directed.</p>
<p>It’s possible the animus towards Monsanto and genetically modified organisms may have influenced the recent juries’ decision far more than any science. However, these materials <a href="http://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/topic/20170608_glyphosate_statement.pdf">had no impact on the scientific findings</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104554/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Musgrave has previously received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council to study adverse reaction to herbal medicines and has previously been funded by the Australian Research Council to study potential natural product treatments for Alzheimer's disease. He has collaborated with SA water on studies of cyanobacterial toxins and their implication for drinking water quality. He does not consult or work for any Agricultural crop company. He did give an invited talk at the 5th South Australia Weeds Conference, for which he received a rather nice muffin and a free cup of coffee.</span></em></p>A US court recently ruled the weed killer Roundup contributed to a former gardener’s cancer. Juries don’t decide science. The weight of evidence shows Roundup has little association with cancer.Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1016672018-08-22T22:38:52Z2018-08-22T22:38:52ZWith Monsanto, Bayer will need more Aspirin<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232969/original/file-20180821-149493-fn3957.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists protest against the acquisition of the U.S. agrochemical company Monsanto by the German Bayer company in Bonn, Germany, Friday, May 25, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Martin Meissner)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Monsanto, now a division of Bayer, has been <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/health/monsanto-johnson-trial-verdict/index.html">ordered to pay a whopping US$289 million to a single American person</a>, a former gardener, who developed cancer, allegedly through the use of their products. </p>
<p>Dewayne Johnson testified that he applied the product — Ranger Pro, a highly concentrated version of Roundup weedkiller, which contains glyphosate — 20 to 30 times per year while working as a school groundskeeper. He told a jury in San Francisco that <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Monsanto-case-Bay-Area-man-with-cancer-awarded-13147891.php">he had two accidents at work, in which he was soaked with the product</a>. In 2014, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, Bayer bought Monsanto for US$62 billion — all cash — in hopes to grow its business on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. But even if Monsanto’s brands no longer exist as such, its legacy remains. </p>
<p>Given that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-monsanto-cancer-lawsuit/first-trial-alleging-monsantos-roundup-causes-cancer-goes-to-jury-idUSKBN1KS2G8">5,000 other similar cases regarding Roundup are currently in progress in the United States alone</a>, Bayer will need to write a new chapter in its public relations playbook.</p>
<h2>A mega-acquisition with tax benefits</h2>
<p>Bayer bought Monsanto because it wanted its thriving crop science division to be complemented by Monsanto’s high-performing chemicals and pesticides. The potential of capitalizing on market dynamics and resolving dissimilar sale cycles between divisions also made the deal attractive, with the possibility of making revenues more predictable regardless of commodity prices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232968/original/file-20180821-149484-15tfuo1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Containers of Roundup, a weed killer made by Monsanto, are shown on a shelf at a hardware store in Los Angeles in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And finally, given Germany’s lower tax rate versus that of the United States, the deal provided substantial tax benefits to Bayer. This mega-acquisition was generally <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/bayer-closes-monsanto-deal-to-cap-63-billion-transformation">well-received by the markets</a>.</p>
<p>But Bayer did go in with a sobering and realistic approach regarding Monsanto. Knowing that Monsanto was damaged goods in the eyes of the public due to years of attacks and criticism by environmental groups, Bayer vowed to dump the name Monsanto as well as its brands while the products would remain the same. </p>
<p>Everyone — Monsanto most of all — wanted the name to disappear. Anyone who has ever Googled the word Monsanto will know that <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-monsanto-can-rehabilitate-its-image">the name has been obliviated due to years of successful campaigning by influential voices</a>.</p>
<h2>The ‘Frankenfoods’ of ‘Monsatan’</h2>
<p>Genetic engineering in agriculture has been a divisive issue for years now. Biotech companies, including Monsanto and Bayer, have been selling agricultural solutions to farmers for decades, but have only recently started to engage with the public. </p>
<p>By the time the sector realized it had <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/what-canadians-dont-understand-about-farming-and-what-they-need-to/">never really received a “social licence”</a> from the public to operate, it was too late, at least for Monsanto. Words like <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/monsatan?lang=en">“Monsatan”</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/frankenfood-does-it-deserve-the-name/2/">“Frankenfoods”</a> were already widely used in media and social culture. Books, ads — most were manufactured to nurture some sort of collective hatred towards the St. Louis-based company. </p>
<p>Still, some studies suggest that <a href="https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/canadians-confused-about-gm-foods-support-mandatory-labelling-study">most consumers are not capable of explaining what genetic engineering is, nor how it relates to agriculture</a>. </p>
<p>This highly polarized public discourse points to the failure of the sector to properly communicate risks to the public, back when genetically modified crops were first produced in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>That political baggage is starting to sting now. After the California ruling, <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/08/16/bayer-stock-monsanto-roundup-glyphosate/">Bayer’s stock is in a nosedive</a>. The California jury found Monsanto liable for selling glyphosate-based weed killers, including its Roundup brand, which according to certain studies causes cancer. </p>
<h2>Uncertain cancer risk</h2>
<p>It’s not clear whether glyphosate does cause cancer as there are several published studies suggesting the opposite. <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/widely-used-herbicide-linked-to-cancer-1.17181"><em>The Lancet</em>, a reputable academic journal, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer</a> have suggested that glyphosate may possibly cause cancer, but have never stated any clear conclusions on the issue.</p>
<p>The jury in California deliberated for more than three days before concluding that Monsanto did not provide enough information to the plaintiff about cancer risks. In other words, regardless of the science, doubts remain, which may have influenced the jury in favour of the plaintiff. Bayer will appeal, of course, but few really know where things will end up.</p>
<p>Throughout these litigations, what remains unknown is how Monsanto’s past could potentially contaminate Bayer’s 156-year-old history. Bayer and some other major players in the biotech sector were never really targeted by damaging crusades against genetically modified seeds and pesticides used in farming. </p>
<p>In the public eye, the California ruling could trigger a new movement, a shift against the sector’s new menace, Bayer. With many cases to come, Bayer’s communications department will only get busier.</p>
<p>This ruling signals, if anything, that consumers were taken for granted for far too long. Before the deal, while Monsanto was being viciously attacked, Bayer was merely an onlooker. </p>
<p>By virtue of well-known consumer brands, the German giant had historically more exposure to the public than Monsanto has ever had, but this will now likely warrant a new chapter in the company’s public relations playbook.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sylvain Charlebois does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bayer, the new owner of Monsanto, will need to up its PR efforts, in the wake of last week’s legal ruling on glyphosate weedkillers.Sylvain Charlebois, Professor in Food Distribution and Policy, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1014332018-08-12T22:30:30Z2018-08-12T22:30:30ZJury finds Monsanto liable in the first Roundup cancer trial – here’s what could happen next<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231573/original/file-20180812-2906-l2x3dx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict in his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, Aug. 10, 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Roundup-Weed-Killer-Cancer/a62f4ec26666469380703da844468a60/9/0">Josh Edelson/Pool Photo via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the first of many pending lawsuits to go to trial, a jury in San Francisco <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/health/monsanto-johnson-trial-verdict/index.html">concluded on Aug. 10</a> that the plaintiff had developed cancer from exposure to Roundup, Monsanto’s widely used herbicide, and ordered the company to pay US$289 million in damages. </p>
<p>The plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson, had used Roundup in his job as groundskeeper in a California school district. He later developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The jury awarded Johnson $39 million in compensatory damages to cover pain, suffering and medical bills due to negligence by Monsanto, plus an additional $250 million in punitive damages. </p>
<p>This means the jury wanted to punish Monsanto because members believed the company deliberately withheld from the public scientific knowledge that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was a cancer danger. The size of the damages awarded indicates that the jury was not persuaded by Monsanto’s expert witnesses.</p>
<p>Product liability lawsuits are an important part of American culture. There are many examples of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-lead-paint-initiative-20180529-story.html">companies knowingly adding toxic agents to their products</a>. So there must be a process for aggrieved individuals who have been harmed to hold these companies accountable.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a lawsuit can be brought against any company for any reason, and some may be frivolous. It is an unfortunate comment on our health care system that so many people are uninsured, and if struck by a dreaded disease, must seek money to deal with it somehow from somewhere.</p>
<p>In many instances it is simply unknown whether a product and its contents are a danger. This verdict is just the first in what could be a long legal battle over Roundup, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-monsantos-roundup-cause-cancer-trial-highlights-the-difficulty-of-proving-a-link-100875">proving causality in such cases is not easy</a>. But here are some observations from my own experience <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=p32Aq9sAAAAJ&hl=en">trying to help figure out why people get cancer</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231576/original/file-20180812-2912-1l7g8pl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Asbestos was widely used in flooring, walls, ceilings and pipes until the 1980s, when it was shown to cause lung cancer. Today workers removing asbestos from older buildings wear protective clothes and respirators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.army.mil/article/137053/asbestos_can_only_pose_danger_when_airborne">US Army</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How credible is the scientific case against Roundup?</h2>
<p>Much of the plaintiff’s case was based on a widely criticized 2015 statement by the <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a>, part of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate was a “probable human carcinogen” (<a href="https://monographs.iarc.fr/agents-classified-by-the-iarc/">Group 2A on its scale</a>). A classification of “human carcinogen” (Group 1) means that a panel of scientists convened by the IARC believes the agent is a cancer hazard to humans, like smoking and ionizing radiation. The 2A classification is not as strong. It means that there is credible evidence, but it does not reach the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”</p>
<p>The IARC’s process for determining carcinogenicity has come under heavy criticism before. In particular, in the early 2000s some observers worried that industry was actually influencing the agency to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(03)00968-9">downgrade its classification of chemical agents</a>. In the Roundup cases, the accusation against the IARC cuts the other way. According to some accounts, it was biased against industry and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/who-iarc-glyphosate/">sought a harsh classification for glyphosate</a>. </p>
<p>The IARC has provided a <a href="http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/IARC_response_to_criticisms_of_the_Monographs_and_the_glyphosate_evaluation.pdf">detailed defense of its process in the glyphosate evaluation</a>. It has also published a <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/2016/glyphosate_IARC2016.php">monograph on glyphosate</a> with all the gory details of the science behind its evaluation.</p>
<p>I served on a monograph working group in 2007 for an IARC assessment of <a href="https://monographs.iarc.fr/iarc-monographs-on-the-evaluation-of-carcinogenic-risks-to-humans-23/">whether shift work was a potential cancer hazard</a>. I have also participated in three other meetings sponsored by IARC over the years, so I have seen the agency’s process up close. In my view, IARC personnel go to great lengths to ensure objectivity and scientific rigor. </p>
<p>This does not mean that their classifications are the last word. In fact, the agency has often changed its classification of an agent based on new evidence after initial evaluation. Sometimes it has become more certain that the agent poses a hazard, but in other cases it has downgraded the hazard.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dx9pQe7d-sI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Monsanto argues that hundreds of tests have shown Roundup does not pose health risks, but several thousand plaintiffs are suing the company, charging that glyphosate gave them cancer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What path for glyphosate?</h2>
<p>Glyphosate and Monsanto could follow the path of the <a href="https://www.asbestos.com/companies/johns-manville/">Johns-Manville company</a>, which started manufacturing asbestos products in the 1880s. After many epidemiological studies showed that exposure to asbestos caused very high rates of lung cancer – primarily pleural mesothelioma – and much litigation, the company <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1990/11/20/a-history-of-asbestos-and-the-manville-trust-fund/fb60ed34-2a94-4570-9648-9e2efb8167f0/?utm_term=.8fd35c1cc152">went bankrupt in 1982</a>. Its assets were reorganized to form the <a href="http://mantrust.claimsres.com/">Manville Trust</a>, which allocates monetary damages to people harmed by asbestos.</p>
<p>Some products still contain small quantities of asbestos today, including <a href="https://www.maacenter.org/blog/5-types-of-products-that-still-contain-asbestos/">motor vehicle parts and fireproof clothing</a>. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to ban it in 1989, but was overturned by a federal court. Nonetheless, because asbestos is so clearly linked to cancer, most companies <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/08/the-trump-administration-is-not-bringing-back-asbestos.html">avoid it now for fear of liability</a>.</p>
<p>Alternatively, glyphosate may follow the route of <a href="http://enhs.umn.edu/current/saccharin/fda.html">saccharin</a>, an artificial sweetener <a href="https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/the-pursuit-of-sweet">discovered in the late 1870s</a>. In 1970 scientists reported that saccharin caused bladder cancer in rats, which led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/11/archives/saccharin-ban-causes-storm-of-complaints-fda-saccharin-ban-causing.html">propose a ban</a> on this extremely popular product in 1977. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231578/original/file-20180812-2918-p3b8sx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1946 advertisement suggested that cigarettes were safe by showing a doctor smoking. Scientific evidence later showed that heavy smoker had 10 to 20 times higher risk of developing cancer than non-smokers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/images.php?token2=fm_st001.php&token1=fm_img0002.php&theme_file=fm_mt001.php&theme_name=">SRITA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, after much more research – including toxicology in rats and epidemiologic studies in people – the IARC downgraded saccharin from a classification of “2B: possible human carcinogen” to “3: not classifiable,” and the U.S. National Toxicology Program <a href="https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/content/appendix_b.pdf">removed saccharin from a 2016 report on carcinogens</a>. As it turned out, the mechanism for causing bladder cancer in rats did not apply to people, and epidemiological studies showed no association.</p>
<p>Monsanto will undoubtedly appeal this initial decision, and it could be years before the issue is settled once and for all. But with this verdict, the onus is now on Monsanto to provide compelling evidence that Roundup is safe in other trials that soon will follow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101433/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A jury concluded on Aug. 10 that exposure to the herbicide Roundup caused Dewayne Johnson’s cancer and ordered the company to pay $289 million in damages. Thousands more claims are pending.Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens, Professor, School of Medicine, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1008752018-08-03T10:35:02Z2018-08-03T10:35:02ZDoes Monsanto’s Roundup cause cancer? Trial highlights the difficulty of proving a link<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230298/original/file-20180801-136676-1bwdtff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guilty or innocent?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/GJW4Gp">Mike Mozart</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does glyphosate, the active ingredient in the widely used weedkiller Roundup, <a href="https://civileats.com/2018/03/29/inside-monsantos-day-in-court-scientists-weigh-in-on-glyphosates-cancer-risks/">cause non-Hodgkin lymphoma</a>? This question is at issue now in a <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/423934-2/">lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court</a>. Hundreds more claims have been cleared to proceed in a <a href="https://www.arnolditkin.com/common-questions/medical-pharmaceutical-injury-faqs/difference-between-multi-district-litigation-cla/">federal multi-district lawsuit</a>.</p>
<p>Much of this litigation is based on a 2015 determination by the <a href="https://www.iarc.fr/index.php">International Agency for Research on Cancer</a>, part of the World Health Organization, that glyphosate is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(15)70134-8">a probable human carcinogen</a>. This report has come under <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aat2480">heavy criticism</a>, which is not surprising because there’s a lot of money at stake.</p>
<p>The IARC classification relied in part on experiments in mice. But is that enough to conclude the weed killer causes cancer in humans? <a href="https://theconversation.com/shift-work-causes-breast-cancer-in-mice-according-to-a-new-study-so-what-does-this-mean-for-humans-45629">Mice are not people</a>, so probably not.</p>
<p>If it was simple to determine the cause of cancer in humans, scientists would do the right experiment and we’d know the answer pretty quickly.</p>
<p>But it’s not simple. </p>
<h2>Proving causation in product liability lawsuits</h2>
<p>Epidemiology is one of the sciences that provides evidence needed to prove cause and effect in medicine and public health. It is the most important tool for determining whether exposure to a given substance increases the risk of disease. The problem is that it is easy to do it badly, and a bad study is worse than no study at all. </p>
<p>In fact, after a special hearing examining the science on both sides of the glyphosate argument, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria called epidemiology <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-14/monsanto-judge-says-expert-testimony-against-roundup-is-shaky">“loosey-goosey” and a “highly subjective field.”</a> Nonetheless, he concluded that the views on both sides were reasonable and should be heard in court, with the verdict up to a jury.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230299/original/file-20180801-136673-uqz9qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illinois corn farmer Jerry McCulley sprays glyphosate across his cornfield in Auburn, June 1, 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Food-and-Farm-Superweeds/d909fd35f29d421aa61dc2dafb937bf3/39/0">AP Photo/Seth Perlman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I have spent much of my working life <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=p32Aq9sAAAAJ&hl=en">trying to help figure out why people get cancer</a>. To illustrate how hard it is to prove causality, consider the question: Does smoking cause lung cancer?</p>
<p>Innumerable epidemiological studies since the 1940s have shown a strong association between smoking and lung cancer. But there has never been a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMHT0025811/">randomized trial in humans</a>. In addition, we know from experimental studies that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10915810701490380">smoking rats don’t get lung cancer</a>. </p>
<p>For years, Big Tobacco dismissed observational studies in people (epidemiology) with the mantra that “association is not causation,” and avoided regulation. The scientific community was intimidated by this strategy for far too long. Eventually, the studies accumulated to the point that the association was overwhelming, and cause and effect could not be denied.</p>
<p>There are two main types of epidemiological study designs: cohort and case-control. In a cohort study, a large group of people – some smokers, some not – are followed over the years to see who gets sick. In a case-control study, a group of lung cancer patients (perhaps several hundred) are asked about their smoking history, along with an equal number of people without lung cancer.</p>
<p>Invariably, in cohort study after cohort study, smokers got sicker from heart disease, lung cancer and many other maladies over time. In most of these studies, scientists did their best to take account of other differences between smokers and non-smokers, so as to isolate the effect of smoking. Also invariably, in case-control studies patients with lung cancer were much more likely to have been smokers than people in the general population.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bGgPjK9UdoI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the first case of its kind to reach trial, Dewayne Johnson is suing Monsanto, the maker of Roundup. The 46-year-old blames his 2014 cancer diagnosis on Roundup’s active ingredient, glyphosate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Defining ‘proof’</h2>
<p>When scientists are asked for a definition of proof, most of them use criteria such as “reproducibility” and “statistical significance” and “plausibility.” But who decides whether each of these criteria has been met? The answer is a panel of experts. It is unsettling to most scientists to hear that “proof” can only be defined as “a consensus of experts,” but this is true from physics to bird-watching. And what has been proven can later be unproven with new experts and/or new evidence.</p>
<p>Who chooses the experts? They include panels convened by the <a href="http://nas.edu/">National Academies of Sciences</a>, or advisory boards of professional societies such as the <a href="https://www.acc.org/#sort=%40fcommonsortdate86069%20descending">American College of Cardiology</a>. The makeup of these panels can be challenged, and of course, people can choose to ignore the “experts” and believe what they want.</p>
<p>In health research, “causing” disease is defined as “increasing risk.” This does not mean that exposure to something like cigarettes is both necessary and sufficient to cause disease. Most heavy smokers never get lung cancer, and some lifelong non-smokers do. However, experts agree that smoking causes lung cancer because hundreds of observational epidemiological studies show that a heavy smoker has a risk of lung cancer 10 to 20 times higher than a non-smoker. This agreement among experts is the proof that smoking causes lung cancer.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=843&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230304/original/file-20180801-136655-1juo04a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1059&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry holds the report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service on the relationship of smoking to health, January 11, 1964. The report led to laws requiring warning labels on cigarette packages and a ban on broadcast cigarette ads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/AP-Was-There-Smoking-Report-/05680d42875e4797bc3b873c53e36799/71/0">AP Photo/hwg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For many other potential hazards, the epidemiology is either inadequate or contradictory. One study may show an association between exposure and disease, while another shows no relationship. This can happen because the exposure does not cause the disease, and studies that do show a relationship are due to chance, bias and/or confounding – in other words, they are false positive results. It also can happen because the true exposure has not been accurately measured, so existing research is masking a real causative effect – also known as a false negative result. </p>
<p>The process of proving cause in science is quite similar to a jury trial. Evidence is presented to a jury (the expert panel or committee), which renders a verdict. To a “reasonable” person, does the evidence rise to the level of guilt – or, in science, proof of cause and effect?</p>
<p>A health scientist sees proof of causation when evidence from epidemiology (observational studies in people) and toxicology (experiments in rats), and, to some extent basic science (does a chemical damage DNA in a test tube?) accumulates to the point where there is no other viable explanation for the evidence than cause and effect. Epidemiology is paramount, because it is a direct assessment of risk in human beings. It is analogous to circumstantial evidence in a jury trial.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230307/original/file-20180801-118933-z2u40p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glyphosate is widely used on field crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pnsp/usage/maps/show_map.php?year=2015&map=GLYPHOSATE&hilo=L">USGS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Is circumstantial evidence enough?</h2>
<p>The fact that smoking causes lung cancer is accepted beyond a reasonable doubt based on the circumstantial evidence of numerous observational epidemiological studies. A convincing case for guilt can rest entirely on circumstantial evidence when that evidence is extensive and strong enough to convince a panel of experts.</p>
<p>It will be harder for jurors in the Roundup trials to weigh epidemiological evidence that glyphosate caused plaintiffs’ cancer, because jurors are rarely experts and successful trial lawyers are exceptionally persuasive.</p>
<p>In my view, there are two crucial requirements for an equitable assessment of proof of causation from products like glyphosate or cigarettes. First, were the epidemiological studies well done? Second, how objective are the jurors and the expert witnesses?</p>
<p>Both science and the judicial system are highly imperfect. The verdicts in these trials could be wrong, and could be appealed. This happens as often in the worlds of science and medicine as it does in the courtroom. </p>
<p>It took many years to develop a broad consensus on cigarettes. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs in the Roundup litigation, the same may be true for glyphosate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hundreds of lawsuits against Monsanto contend that its popular Roundup weed killer gave users cancer. But proving this kind of connection is challenging in both science and law.Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens, Professor, School of Medicine, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/913832018-02-18T21:26:23Z2018-02-18T21:26:23ZScience, politics and the quest to secure Africa’s sustainable food future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206414/original/file-20180214-174986-13so0ep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A man walks through a greenhouse in October 2017 at a learning centre in Uganda where sustainable agriculture techniques, such as drought-resistant crops and tree planting, are taught. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Adelle Kalakouti)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the book <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/ca/academic/subjects/general-science/history-science/golem-what-you-should-know-about-science-2nd-edition-1?format=PB&isbn=9781107604650#MMrjtx0u3TicH4bG.97"><em>The Golem: What You Should Know About Science</em></a>, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch claimed that citizens of technological societies needed to pay attention to controversial science. </p>
<p>Collins and Pinch argued that scientific controversies exist when the criteria that impart “scientific competence” are publicly contested. As they saw it, when scientists critically and prominently question research results, or deride the quality of work done by others, science becomes politically consequential. </p>
<p>Controversies tend to be exceptions, as Beth Savan, the inaugural sustainability director at the University of Toronto, underscored in her book <em>Science Under Siege: The Myth of Objectivity in Scientific Research</em>.</p>
<p>But there are still good reasons to remember that scientists are human. The personal choices that researchers make, and their subjective interpretations of data, are never inconsequential.</p>
<p>And we do not have to rely solely on critics of science to learn that politics often infuses scientific endeavours. As Ursula M. Franklin, the noted German-Canadian metallurgist and physicist, detailed in the expansion of her 1989 Massey Lectures, <a href="https://houseofanansi.com/products/the-real-world-of-technology-digital"><em>The Real World of Technology</em></a>, technology is anything but apolitical when viewed as a system. </p>
<p>Even the <a href="http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/BehavioralChangeTheories/BehavioralChangeTheories4.html">classic text</a> on innovation and development — Everett M. Rogers’ <em>Diffusion of Innovations</em> — stresses that some amount of persuasion is always necessary for people to form favourable or unfavourable attitudes towards particular innovations.</p>
<h2>‘Politics of persuasion’ in Africa</h2>
<p>At present on the African continent, the politics of persuasion are especially consequential in the area of agri-food research and development. </p>
<p>Today, many scientists and researchers, and many more politically concerned people with a stake in Africa’s food future, have mobilized those powers of persuasion. </p>
<p>Some have come together with large agri-businesses to network and build coalitions in support of particular laboratory-based innovations, including biotechnology. </p>
<p>Others, including <a href="http://www.eco.ca/career-profiles/agronomist/">agronomists</a>, have built alliances with small farmers to raise awareness of certain field-based innovations and technologies, such as biological pesticides. </p>
<p>The good news about <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/ak241e/ak241e00.htm">all</a> of the <a href="https://www.grain.org/article/entries/427-twelve-reasons-for-africa-to-reject-gm-crops">controversies</a> that <a href="https://qz.com/1094112/obesity-diabetes-rises-africa-thanks-to-fast-food/">currently</a> envelop food and agriculture in Africa is that they are happening prominently and in full public view. Debates over land “grabbing,” transgenic crop approvals and the implications of rapid dietary change have generated sustained attention.</p>
<p>In this context, all of the new policy action related to scientific innovation and technological development can inform more inclusive and sustainable food futures. </p>
<p>African scientists working on this topic, for their part, should be proud of just how far attention to African agriculture policy has come since the 1980s. </p>
<p>Back then, in the wake of numerous structural adjustments — including liberalizations, privatizations and deregulation — food system innovation was a missing-in-action topic. Over the ensuing decades, agriculture fell off the policy agenda, and was not even the subject of a <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/5990"><em>World Development Report</em></a> until 2008.</p>
<p>The political world in which African food system innovation is immersed has certainly changed for the better over the past 10 years. Akinwumi Adesina, the <a href="https://www.worldfoodprize.org/en/laureates/2017_laureate/">2017 World Food Prize Laureate</a> and president of the African Development Bank, has been credited for “galvanizing the political will to transform African agriculture.” Adesina donated his prize money in support of Africa’s young “agropreneurs.”</p>
<h2>Reduces poverty?</h2>
<p>But noted political experts have continued to raise pointed questions about the continent’s food future pertaining to production processes, trade flows, sources of finance and, crucially, science and sustainability.</p>
<p>The political fault lines are particularly stark when it comes to the latter topic: Science that might enable Africa’s food and agricultural systems to thrive in the context of climate variability and change. </p>
<p>So-called “<a href="http://www.fao.org/climate-smart-agriculture/en/">climate-smart agriculture</a>” (CSA) has become a new master concept in this policy area. And it remains a highly contested concept. </p>
<p>That said, according to recent analyses published in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066150.2017.1381602"><em>The Journal of Peasant Studies</em></a>, a leading journal in the field, there is at least some global agreement. In particular, experts generally view CSA as an effort to make agriculture more resilient to the effects of climate change. In turn, that helps reduce poverty, increases yields and cuts greenhouse gas emissions from farming. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206416/original/file-20180214-174982-ws5fcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man works on cassava plants at a farm at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria, in October 2012. A single planted hectare of cassava can provide three tonnes of food since the plants survive fires, droughts and pestilence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While support for these causes is broadly shared, very few potential solutions enjoy the universal support of agriculture stakeholders. As such, the notion that CSA is an “apolitical” framework — an approach that is somehow divorced from the realm of political contestation and debate — is a non-starter. </p>
<p>In fact, the idea that CSA is somehow above politics has been debunked at length in the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150.2017.1312355">pages of the same journal</a>.</p>
<p>Writing in the <a href="https://theecologist.org/2018/jan/19/will-climate-smart-agriculture-serve-public-interest-or-drive-growing-profits-private">Ecologist</a> magazine, noted food and sustainability experts, including Jennifer Clapp and Peter Newell, have recently asked if CSA will serve the public interest, or alternatively, bolster the profits of transnational agribusiness corporations. </p>
<p>These scholars worry that solutions favouring transnational businesses and the expansion of industrial-scale agriculture tend to enjoy the most support in the biggest emerging CSA networks. For instance, they cite the challenges associated with water-efficient maize for Africa (WEMA), and how this purported solution could make small farmers dependent on seeds company <a href="https://monsanto.com/">Monsanto</a>.</p>
<p>However, Clapp, Newell and their collaborators have also identified an alternative to the dominant perspective. </p>
<h2>Pursuing sustainability</h2>
<p>In their view, the global peasant movement <em><a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/">La Via Campesina</a></em>, non-governmental organizations such as Greenpeace and ActionAid International, as well as experts including the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, are actively contesting industrial-scale models of “sustainable intensification.” </p>
<p>These voices advocate green and inclusive farm-level interventions informed by <a href="http://www.fao.org/agroecology/en/">ecological principles</a>. They also support practices associated with agro-forestry and organic certification, and emphasize the need for more <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/food-sovereignty">local control</a> in support of sustainability. </p>
<p>This emerging debate is of crucial importance for African scientists working hard to make the continent’s food future more sustainable. </p>
<p>The scientific community must acknowledge that the power politics associated with this debate cannot simply be wished away. If Africans are swayed by “solutions” that reinforce the market and political power of organizations based elsewhere, Africa’s food futures might reflect the marginalization, dispossession and oppression of the past.</p>
<p>In this context, young African scientists must be both open-minded to bold ideas, and attentive to the global power dynamics that infuse their areas of research, learning and discovery.</p>
<p>They must also be cautious when using terms such as “productivity” and “efficiency.” Genuine climate-smart agriculture demands increased attentiveness to productivity over longer-term time periods, and to efficiency in relation to broader social and environmental criteria.</p>
<p>As the globe grapples with agribusiness mega-mergers — the subject of a recent report of the <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/new-report-too-big-to-feed-us-expert-panel-sounds-the-alarm-on-mega-mergers-and-calls-for-urgent-review"><em>International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems</em></a> — there is nonetheless great hope that Africans can make tremendous scientific contributions to new CSA practices. </p>
<p>There is already ample evidence that Africans are truly making their mark in this area. The <a href="http://www.remei.ch/en/biore-foundation/">bioRe Foundation in Tanzania</a>, for example, has developed innovative CSA practices for cotton that sustainably and consistently diversify yields and promote soil health. And the successes associated with other on-field and lab-based African innovations are simply too numerous to recount here.</p>
<p>A focus on the successes, and also the challenges linked with the technical, social, political and institutional environments necessary to support climate- smart agriculture, will be in the spotlight at the <a href="http://www.nef.org/">Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering 2018</a> in Kigali in March.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This piece was originally published on the <a href="http://gg2018.nef.org/science-politics-and-the-quest-to-secure-sustainable-food-futures-for-africa/">Next Einstein Forum blog</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Sneyd is a member of the Academic and Scientific Advisory Council of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), and also serves on the Scientific Program Committee of the Next Einstein Forum.</span></em></p>At present on the African continent, the politics of persuasion are especially consequential in the area of agri-food research and development.Adam Sneyd, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845722017-10-04T01:12:16Z2017-10-04T01:12:16ZAgent Orange, exposed: How U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam unleashed a slow-moving disaster<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187424/original/file-20170925-17386-17l55pz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unlike napalm, which immediately scalded its victims, Agent Orange kills and maims slowly over time, its effects passed down through generations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US-Army-APC-spraying-Agent-Orange-in-Vietnam.jpg">U.S. Army Operations in Vietnam R.W. Trewyn, Ph.D/Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the end, the military campaign was called <a href="https://www.cc.gatech.edu/%7Etpilsch/AirOps/ranch.html">Operation Ranch Hand</a>, but it originally went by a more appropriately hellish appellation: Operation Hades. As part of this Vietnam War effort, from 1961 to 1971, the United States sprayed over 73 million liters of chemical agents on the country to strip away the vegetation that provided cover for Vietcong troops in “enemy territory.” </p>
<p>Using a variety of defoliants, the U.S. military also intentionally targeted cultivated land, destroying crops and disrupting rice production and distribution by the largely communist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Liberation-Front-political-organization-Vietnam">National Liberation Front</a>, a party devoted to reunification of North and South Vietnam.</p>
<p>Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent Orange, which contains the toxic compound <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/">dioxin</a>. It has unleashed in Vietnam a slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health and ecological impacts that are still being felt today. </p>
<p>This is one of the greatest legacies of the country’s 20-year war, but is yet to be honestly confronted. Even Ken Burns and Lynn Novick seem to <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/09/28/the-ken-burns-vietnam-war-documentary-glosses-over-devastating-civilian-toll/">gloss over</a> this contentious issue, both in their supposedly <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/21/ideology-as-history-a-critical-commentary-on-burns-and-novicks-the-vietnam-war/">exhaustive “Vietnam War” documentary series</a> and in subsequent <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=552575164">interviews about the horrors of Vietnam</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"909580829998886913"}"></div></p>
<h2>Vietnam’s half-century of disaster</h2>
<p>More than 10 years of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam exposed an estimated <a href="https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/vietnam-to-spend-12mln-preparing-former-us-air-base-for-dioxin-cleanup-campaign-3643119.html">2.1 to 4.8 million</a> Vietnamese people to Agent Orange. More than 40 years on, the impact on their health has been staggering. </p>
<p>This dispersion of Agent Orange over a vast <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/agent-orange-in-vietnam-program/maps-of-heavily-sprayed-areas-and-dioxin-hot-spots/">area of central and south Vietnam</a> poisoned the soil, river systems, lakes and rice paddies of Vietnam, enabling toxic chemicals to enter the food chain. </p>
<p>Vietnamese people weren’t the only ones poisoned by Agent Orange. U.S. soldiers, unaware of the dangers, <a href="http://www.11thcavnam.com/main/story_of_agent_orange.htm">sometimes showered in the empty 55-gallon drums</a>, used them to store food and repurposed them as barbecue pits. </p>
<p>Unlike the effects of another chemical weapon used in Vietnam – namely <a href="http://science.howstuffworks.com/napalm1.htm">napalm</a>, which caused painful death by burns or asphyxiation – Agent Orange exposure did not affect its victims immediately. </p>
<p>In the first generation, the impacts were mostly visible in high rates of various forms of cancer <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-poison-harvest-19780824">among both U.S. soldiers</a> and Vietnam residents. </p>
<p>But then the children were born. It is estimated that, in total, tens of thousands of people have suffered <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HViMNzSAxVU">serious birth defects</a> – spina bifida, cerebral palsy, physical and intellectual disabilities and missing or deformed limbs. Because the effects of the chemical are <a href="https://pilotonline.com/news/military/veterans/vietnam/we-want-it-to-stop-with-us-agent-orange-curse/article_3c52d33c-069a-5535-bea4-ced2d1e555c5.html">passed from one generation to the next</a>, Agent Orange is now debilitating its <a href="http://directaction.org.au/issue35/victims_of_agent_orangedioxin_agent_orange_in_vietnam_was_a_crime_against_humanity">third and fourth generation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=801&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187292/original/file-20170925-17290-10gvwk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aerial spraying in central and southern Vietnam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A legacy of environmental devastation</h2>
<p>During the 10-year campaign, U.S. aircraft targeted <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange">4.5 million acres</a> across <a href="https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/files/content/docs/agent-orange/2012-5-30DialogueGroup2ndYearReportwithFocusonUSAIDComprehensivePlan.pdf">30 different provinces</a> in the area below the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/geneva-conference-begins">17th parallel</a> and in the Mekong Delta, destroying inland hardwood forests and coastal mangrove swamps as they sprayed. </p>
<p>The most <a href="https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/agent-orange-in-vietnam-program/maps-of-heavily-sprayed-areas-and-dioxin-hot-spots/">heavily exposed locations</a> – among them Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc, Thua Thien Hue and Kontum – were sprayed multiple times. Toxic hotspots also <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-091204-agentorange-map-htmlstory.html">remain</a> at several former U.S. air force bases. </p>
<p>And while research in those areas is limited – an <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524914-200-us-cancels-agent-orange-study-in-vietnam/">extensive 2003 study</a> was canceled in 2005 due to a reported “<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7034/full/434687a.html">lack of mutual understanding</a>” between the U.S. and the Vietnamese governments – evidence suggests that the heavily polluted soil and water in these locations have yet to recover. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jeph/2014/528965/">dangerous quantity of residual dioxin</a> in the earth thwarts the normal growth of crops and trees, while continuing to poison the food chain.</p>
<p>Vietnam’s natural defenses were also debilitated. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fQy8BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=nearly+50+percent+of+the+country%27s+mangroves+destroyed+Vietnam+War&source=bl&ots=IgPJC0KXXQ&sig=ItwsbQSILuO5rcO9zx1LUrdKjfo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3w9KB69TWAhXm1IMKHdiqBrcQ6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=nearly%2050%20percent%20of%20the%20country's%20mangroves%20destroyed%20Vietnam%20War&f=false">Nearly 50 percent</a> of the country’s mangroves, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/mangroves-natures-shield-against-typhoons-and-tsunami-21051">protect shorelines from typhoons and tsunamis</a>, were destroyed. </p>
<p>On a positive note, the Vietnamese government and both local and international organizations are <a href="https://www.iucn.org/content/mangrove-restoration-viet-nam-national-plans-vs-local-realities">making strides</a> toward restoring this critical landscape. The U.S. and Vietnam are also undertaking a <a href="https://theconversation.com/forgetting-the-american-war-vietnams-friendship-with-its-former-enemy-7935">joint remediation program</a> to deal with <a href="http://www.agentorangerecord.com/information/other_govtngo_programs/">dioxin-contaminated soil and water</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187265/original/file-20170924-17241-1e6jns9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mangrove forests before and after spraying.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#/media/File:Before_and_after_spraying_agent_orange.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The destruction of <a href="http://www.agentorangerecord.com/impact_on_vietnam/environment/defoliation/P1/">Vietnamese forests</a>, however, has proven irreversible. The natural habitat of such rare species as tigers, elephants, bears and leopards were distorted, in many cases beyond repair.</p>
<p>In parts of central and southern Vietnam that were already exposed to environmental hazards such as frequent <a href="https://theconversation.com/vietnams-typhoon-disaster-highlights-the-plight-of-its-poorest-people-84274">typhoons and flooding</a> in low-lying areas and <a href="http://en.wrd.gov.vn/News/catid/85/item/2678/summary-of-damaged-rice-area-in-cuu-long-delta-in">droughts and water scarcity</a> in the highlands and Mekong Delta, herbicide spraying led to <a href="https://hero.epa.gov/hero/index.cfm/reference/details/reference_id/1383715">nutrient loss</a> in the soil. </p>
<p>This, in turn, has caused <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y2795e/y2795e11.htm">erosion</a>, <a href="http://vietnam.vnanet.vn/english/55-years-of-lingering-agent-orange-pains/258265.html">compromising forests</a> in 28 river basins. As a result, <a href="http://vava.org.vn/hoi-thao-khoa-hoc-quoc-te-danh-gia-tac-hai-cua-chat-doc-da-camdioxin-do-my-su-dung-trong-chien-tranh-o-viet-nam/">flooding has gotten worse</a> in numerous watershed areas. </p>
<p>Some of these vulnerable areas also happen to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/vietnams-typhoon-disaster-highlights-the-plight-of-its-poorest-people-84274">very poor</a> and, these days, home to a large number of Agent Orange victims.</p>
<h2>War propaganda and delayed justice</h2>
<p>During Operation Ranch Hand, the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments spent considerable time and effort making the claim that tactical herbicides were safe for humans and the environment. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l8QUMlQb6y8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. propaganda about Agent Orange was so effective, it fooled American troops into thinking it was safe, too.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It launched a public relations campaign included educational programs showing civilians happily applying herbicides to their skin and passing through defoliated areas without concern. </p>
<p>One prominent comic strip featured a character named <a href="https://vi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BA%A5t_%C4%91%E1%BB%99c_da_cam">Brother Nam</a> who explained that “The only effect of defoliant is to kill trees and force leaves to whither, and normally does not cause harm to people, livestock, land, or the drinking water of our compatriots.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187266/original/file-20170924-2621-10tg9l3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brother Nam assured readers that herbicides were safe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange#/media/File:Before_and_after_spraying_agent_orange.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s abundantly clear now that this is false. Allegedly, chemical manufacturers had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/05/us/dow-says-us-knew-dioxin-peril-of-agent-orange.html">informed the U.S. military that Agent Orange was toxic</a>, but spraying went forward anyway. </p>
<p>Today, Agent Orange has become a contentious legal and political issue, both within Vietnam and internationally. From 2005 to 2015, more than <a href="http://www.baomoi.com/can-chinh-sach-thong-thoang-cho-nan-nhan-chat-doc-da-cam/c/17252559.epi">200,000 Vietnamese victims</a> suffering from <a href="http://vanban.chinhphu.vn/portal/page/portal/chinhphu/hethongvanban?class_id=1&mode=detail&document_id=76698">17 diseases</a> linked to cancers, diabetes and birth defects were eligible for <a href="http://moj.gov.vn/vbpq/lists/vn%20bn%20php%20lut/view_detail.aspx?itemid=17768">limited compensation</a>, via a government program. </p>
<p>U.S. companies, including <a href="https://monsanto.com/company/media/statements/agent-orange-background/">Monsanto</a> and <a href="http://www.dow.com/en-us/about-dow/issues-and-challenges/agent-orange">Dow Chemical</a>, have taken the position that the governments involved in the war are solely responsible for paying out damages to Agent Orange victims. In 2004, a Vietnamese group unsuccessfully <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/15/agent.orange.suit/">attempted to sue</a> some 30 companies, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange">alleging that the use of chemical weapons constituted a war crime</a>. The class action case was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-agentorange-lawsuit/court-upholds-dismissal-of-agent-orange-suit-idUSN2257383520080225">dismissed</a> in 2005 by a district court in Brooklyn, New York.</p>
<p>Many American victims have had better luck, though, seeing successful multi-million-dollar class action settlements with manufacturers of the chemical, including Dow, in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/08/nyregion/veterans-accept-180-million-pact-on-agent-orange.html?pagewanted=all">1984</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/24/monsanto-agent-orange-west-virginia">2012</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the U.S. government <a href="http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/index.php/forgotten-victims-agent-orange/">recently allocated</a> more than US$13 billion to fund expanded Agent Orange-related health services in America. No such plan is in store <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/the-struggle-continues-se_b_3736761.html">in Vietnam</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"891501174045765632"}"></div></p>
<p>It is unlikely that the U.S. will admit liability for the horrors Agent Orange unleashed in Vietnam. To do so would set <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/17/40-years-on-the-vietnam-war-continues-for-victims-of-agent-orange/">an unwelcome precedent</a>: Despite official <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4483690.stm">denials</a>, the U.S. and its allies, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7823078.stm">including Israel</a>, have been accused of using <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/02/04/burning-victims-death-still-common-practice/">chemical weapons</a> in conflicts in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2009/03/25/israel-white-phosphorus-use-evidence-war-crimes">Gaza</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-fog-of-war-white-phosphorus-fallujah-and-some-burning-questions-5348984.html">Iraq</a> and <a href="https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/syria-expert-analysis-shows-us-led-coalition-use-white-phosphorus-may-amount-war-crime/">Syria</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, nobody is officially accountable for the suffering of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. The Burns and Novick <a href="http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/watch/">documentary</a> could have finally raised this uncomfortable truth, but, alas, the directors missed their chance.</p>
<p><em>This story was co-authored by Hang Thai T.M., a research assistant at the Posts and Telecommunications Institute of Technology, in Hanoi.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84572/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason von Meding receives funding from Save the Children and the Australian government for disaster related research in Vietnam. </span></em></p>The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam had deep impacts, including a poisoned water supply, birth defects and cancer. Despite decades of attempted litigation, justice for spraying victims seems unlikely.Jason von Meding, Senior Lecturer in Disaster Risk Reduction, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782562017-06-30T03:43:49Z2017-06-30T03:43:49ZGrowing food in the post-truth era<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173909/original/file-20170615-22797-1o9q86j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Critics fear the merger of agricultural giants Bayer and Monsanto will drive an increase in use of pesticides.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/agrilifetoday/16929844842/in/photolist-rN2T3A-8DXsx1-9MgfGd-7TiZ1v-8DXhCU-9zwKsJ-8Zqd7z-cdx66W-eg2HUM-f4x9f4-7TnhMw-7TngnU-9n7zac-9Mdr7Z-4HJkxG-4MtZUF-7TnfAo-4HDXgM-fDx8fH-4SD8sy-a2AY4x-9Mdt24-4HgvNC-8PfXpg-4Sy8Lv-4Momau-nZcxJD-4SCmjG-cYVa8A-9KBLmm-8wTEQi-4StvM3-4SCmnS-9MgdN5-6mtHKD-8aothc-6bH8UH-4StvGy-8vNsza-4Mu41V-mV1z39-5UzgMr-Df1fp5-pFE5TJ-4SCmgf-9MgewL-9MghJ7-8aWBAw-kmjRKg-4StvNA">AgriLife Today/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.</em> </p>
<p><em>The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics, and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (<a href="http://chcinetwork.org/sydney-social-sciences-and-humanities-advanced-research-centre-sssharc">SSSHARC</a>), the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a> and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades. Having constructed food scarcity as a justification for a <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/green-revolution/">second Green Revolution</a>, Big Agriculture now employs its unethical marketing tactics to selling farmers “climate-smart” agriculture in the form of soils, seeds and chemicals.</p>
<p>The cover of Monsanto’s 2016 annual report, <a href="http://www.monsanto.com/investors/publishingimages/annual%20report%202016/2016_monsanto_annual_report.pdf">A Limitless Perspective</a>, presents a vista of galaxies worthy of a George Lucas production. The brightest star is an <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-12/basf-syngenta-said-among-bidders-for-bayer-monsanto-disposals">A$88 billion merger with German chemical company Bayer</a>, to be finalised this year.</p>
<p>Critics have described this as a “<a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/manufacturing/bayer-monsanto-merger-an-88b-marriage-made-in-hell/news-story/23e17cf89cbf1a98a6c413410a6afd25">marriage made in hell</a>”. They fear the new mega-corporation will impose even more pesticides and genetically modified seeds on the world’s farmers.</p>
<p>Monsanto’s oft-stated aim is to <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/capture-smear-contaminate-the-politics-of-gmos/5459021">“consolidate the entire food chain”</a>. That means a corporatised food regime that concentrates knowledge and power in the hands of a few.</p>
<p>This cedes control of food security to profit-making companies. The democratic governance of food and agriculture policy is under threat.</p>
<h2>The myth of scarcity</h2>
<p>Framing market opportunities as moral imperatives, the agribusiness narrative is to “<a href="https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/feeding_the_world/EWG_FeedingTheWorld.pdf?_ga=2.136434672.1539845188.1496713081-816214048.1496713081">feed the world</a>”. That’s while making exorbitant profits at the expense of small-scale farmers and consumer health.</p>
<p>The rhetoric of scarcity is hollow; <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf">excess production</a> is the problem. The food industry is a major contributor to overproduction, food insecurity and environmental degradation.</p>
<p>This includes the production of up to one-third of <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708">global greenhouse gas emissions</a>, when fertiliser production, food storage, and packaging are included.</p>
<p>Yet “Big Ag” is committed to raising output, intensification of farming, mass processing, mass marketing, homogeneity of product, monocultures, and chemical and pharmaceutical solutions.</p>
<p>The post-truth claim that the powerful US agribusiness lobby uses to justify these practices is that America’s farmers <a href="https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/feeding_the_world/EWG_FeedingTheWorld.pdf?_ga=2.136434672.1539845188.1496713081-816214048.1496713081">must double grain and meat production</a> to meet the needs of a global population of 9 billion by 2050.</p>
<p>In reality, the surplus, heavily subsidised production of the US grain-livestock complex makes little contribution to ending global hunger and malnutrition. Some <a href="https://static.ewg.org/reports/2016/feeding_the_world/EWG_FeedingTheWorld.pdf?_ga=2.136434%20672.1539845188.1496713081-816214048.1496713081">90% of US exports</a> go to countries where people can afford to buy food.</p>
<h2>The corporate capture of climate change</h2>
<p>Ironically, a new enemy within threatens Big Ag’s market opportunities. </p>
<p>When US President Donald Trump met his election commitments by stepping out of the Paris Agreement on June 2, 2017, he stepped on some big toes. Following Trump’s election, Monsanto and Du Pont had joined more than 360 US-based multinationals in signing a letter to Trump demanding action on climate change: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Implementing the Paris Agreement will enable and encourage businesses and investors to turn the billions of dollars in existing low-carbon investments into the trillions of dollars the world needs to bring clean energy and prosperity to all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The altruism of these motives is questionable, given the profits to be made in the corporate capture of climate change. The low-carbon economy is big business.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.adm.com/en-US/company/Pages/overview.aspx">Archer Daniels Midland</a>, which bills itself as “supermarket to the world”, is investing in carbon capture and sequestration projects with the aim of reducing emissions and storing them underground.</p>
<p>Bayer is <a href="https://www.cropscience.bayer.com/en/crop-compendium/key-crops/oilseeds">developing</a> stress-tolerant oilseeds, maize and wheat varieties that will cope with extreme weather.</p>
<p>Global Swiss agro corp Syngenta’s <a href="http://www4.syngenta.com/what-we-do/the-good-growth-plan">Good Growth Plan</a> assures us the private sector can deliver on “the promise of sustainable and inclusive development” while mitigating the effects of climate change.</p>
<h2>If you tell the same story five times, it’s true …</h2>
<p>Rising global temperatures will bring new varieties of pests and disease, and a new twist on the time-worn post-truth spin that pesticides are the solution to feeding a fast-growing population. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173913/original/file-20170615-21345-7oggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The
pesticide business is huge, despite the increasingly well-documented evidence of the harm it does.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jz909/1450513463/">jetsandzeppelins/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a report in March this year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/017/85/PDF/G1701785.pdf">publicly dismissed</a> this claim. The report cites evidence that pesticides cause 200,000 deaths a year.</p>
<p>In the report, the UN special rapporteur for the right to food, Hilal Elvar, says global corporations manufacturing pesticides are guilty of “systematic denial of harms” and “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics”.</p>
<p>She condemns lobbying practices that have “obstructed reforms and paralysed pesticide restrictions”. Companies infiltrate federal regulatory agencies via “revolving doors” and “cultivate strategic public-private partnerships that call into question their culpability or help bolster the companies’ credibility”.</p>
<p>This credibility is propped up by networks of academics and regulators recruited as consultants. In accepting corporate funding and signing confidentiality agreements, scientists sacrifice autonomy and are co-opted into disinformation campaigns that support Big Ag agendas, at the cost of their ethics.</p>
<p>For example, when bee scientist James Cresswell presented findings that linked Syngenta pesticides to colony collapse, he was pressured “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/business/scientists-loved-and-loathed-by-syngenta-an-agrochemical-giant.html?_r=1">to consider new data and a different approach</a>” in his industry-sponsored research. The “Faustian bargain” he had made cost him dearly.</p>
<p>Some are brave enough to call out post-truth claims. Angelika Hilbeck found toxins in genetically modified corn killed lacewing bugs as well as pests. Scientists like her are <a href="https://geneticliteracyproject.org/glp-facts/angelika-hilbeck-ecologist-claims-agri-corporations-stalk-claiming-gmos-dangerous/">labelled</a> “ideological researchers” and part of the “extremist organic movement”.</p>
<h2>World views collide</h2>
<p>This frank dismissal of alternative production systems represents a collision between competing frames, stakes and forms of expertise in food and agriculture policy.</p>
<p>Big Ag relies on the myth that large-scale, conventional agriculture generates higher yields and is more efficient than small-scale, family farms. Yet the latter produce <a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/hlpe/hlpe_documents/HLPE_Reports/HLPE-Report-%206_Investing_in_smallholder_agriculture.pdf">more than three-quarters of the world’s food</a>.</p>
<p>Concerns about the lack of sustainability and resilience of industrial farming practices has led to critical questions about the way we produce food. Notably, in 2008 the Internal Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) recognised the need for changes in “<a href="http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/est/Investment/Agriculture_at_a_Crossroads_Global_Report_IAASTD.pdf">paradigms and values</a>” to include alternative, agro-ecological production systems.</p>
<p>A multi-year study involving 44 scientists from more than 60 countries, the IAASTD considers the political conditions that contribute to food insecurity. This includes damaging structural adjustment policies and unfair international trade agreements.</p>
<p>The findings highlight how poverty rates, levels of education, knowledge of nutrition, war and conflict marginalise those most vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition. Importantly, the report emphasises that critical communities, by raising questions of ownership and control of technologies, play a vital role in food systems governance.</p>
<p>These include the global peasant farmers’ movement <a href="https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php">La Via Campesina</a>, which openly rejects climate-smart rhetoric as <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/blog/whats-%20wrong-with-%20climate-smart-%20agriculture/">promotion of an agribusiness agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Promoting the concept of food sovereignty, La Via Campesina denies simplistic linkages between population growth, climate change, conflict, and resource scarcity. We are reminded that technological solutions are not neutral. The <a href="https://nyeleni.org/spip.php?article290">2007 Nyeleni Declaration</a> of the Forum for Food Sovereignty asserts:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These farmers are the vanguard of resistance to Big Ag’s efforts to further intensify agricultural production at the expense of people and environments.
We have a responsibility to join them in challenging the logic of an industrial food system that is about growth at all costs.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>You can read other pieces in the post-truth series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">here</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series is a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alana Mann is affiliated with the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.</span></em></p>The global food system has been operating in post-truth mode for decades.Alana Mann, Chair of Department, Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/647572016-09-04T17:44:14Z2016-09-04T17:44:14ZAfrica needs to move faster to deliver life-saving soil science solutions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136402/original/image-20160902-20238-r9hp6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers at several institutions are searching for microbial solutions for Africa’s low-performing staple crops</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Not many years ago, global health advocates bemoaned the fact that it took decades for life-saving vaccines to become widely accessible in poorer countries. This resulted in the unnecessary deaths of millions of children every year. Today, however, childhood vaccines are available <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs378/en/">nearly everywhere</a>. This was thanks to global partnerships between governments, industry and philanthropists.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the same is not true of agricultural technologies, which can also be life-saving. In poor countries, low agricultural productivity and soil degradation are <a href="ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/ai799e/ai799e02.pdf">factors driving</a> chronic hunger and malnutrition and associated sickness and premature death. Indeed, <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs178/en/">malnutrition</a> contributes to almost half of all child deaths.</p>
<p>But the current revolution in agricultural technology that is <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/nature/more-food-with-microbes/">reshaping</a> Western agriculture is yet to reach poor countries in Africa. This is certainly the case when it comes to agricultural products based on the use of <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-soil-microbes-fight-climate-change/">soil microbes</a>. These are naturally occurring microorganisms like bacteria and fungi.</p>
<h2>Best-kept secret</h2>
<p>Microbial-based solutions are perhaps the best-kept secret among the innovations driving agriculture today. Much more is commonly known about precision techniques, drones and satellite data. Yet in developed countries microbial-based solutions are a <a href="http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2015/02/16/innovation-and-investment-in-agtech-the-what-when-who-why-and-how/">$2.3 billion market</a> – and <a href="https://research01.agfunder.com/2015/AgFunder-AgTech-Investing-Report-2015.pdf">growing</a>. </p>
<p>Microbial-based solutions also have funds and support from the largest corporations in agriculture.</p>
<p>Monsanto and Novozymes created the <a href="http://www.monsantobioag.com/Pages/bioag-alliance.aspx">BioAg Alliance</a>. This long-term strategic parternship brings together their capabilities in microbial discovery, development and production. $300 million was put in for research and development. In addition, Bayer Crop Sciences developed <a href="https://www.cropscience.bayer.us/products/seedgrowth/poncho-votivo">Poncho®/Votivo®</a>, a biological seed treatment. This product protects young soybean plants from pests. It also improves root growth and <a href="https://www.cropscience.bayer.us/products/seedgrowth/poncho-votivo/trial-data-corn">increases yields</a> by 15%. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://agfundernews.com/innovation-investment-agtech.html">companies</a> that have invested in this area include <a href="http://agbiome.com/whoisagbiome/">Agbiome</a>, a biotechnology company using knowledge of plant-associated microbiome to create innovative products for agriculture, and <a href="http://bioconsortia.com/">Bioconsortia</a>, a company specialising in the discovery and development of natural microbial products. There’s also <a href="http://symbiota.com/about-us/overview/">Symbiota</a>, a company developing microbial solutions for agriculture.</p>
<h2>Microbial products</h2>
<p>Microbial products are so exciting partly because they are derived from naturally occurring microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. These microscopic creatures form mutually beneficial associations with plants including maize, tomatoes and peppers. </p>
<p>They help improve soil fertility and strengthen plant defences against insect pests and diseases. They also help plants tolerate extreme temperature fluctuations that come with a changing climate. They have the potential to <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RI3RJBvT0KcJ:news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140918-soil-bacteria-microbe-farming-technology-ngfood/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk">improve agriculture</a> and help humanity <a href="http://www.cropsreview.com/agricultural-productivity.html">feed the growing population</a> in a changing climate while protecting the environment.</p>
<p>In Africa, microbial science for agriculture is just getting started. Yet it is here where there is an overwhelming need to improve crop productivity and soil health. </p>
<p>Some 65% of African farmland is <a href="http://www.dailymanagementreview.com/65-of-Africa-arable-land-is-damaged-and-of-poor-quality_a253.html">degraded</a>. Unhealthy and degraded soils are a major obstacle to food security and development. They also cost African farmers $68 billion <a href="http://ag4impact.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/MP_0106_Soil_Report_LR1.pdf">annually</a>. Crops grown in depleted soils are nutrient-poor and low-yielding. Indeed, yields for several staple food crops in sub-Saharan Africa have <a href="http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/nyas_building_agra.pdf">remained stagnant</a> for decades.</p>
<h2>Searching for solutions</h2>
<p>Researchers at several institutions are searching for microbial solutions for Africa’s low-performing staple crops. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jic.ac.uk/">John Innes Centre</a> based in the UK is leading an <a href="https://www.jic.ac.uk/news/2012/07/cereals-self-fertilise/">investigation</a> into whether bacteria can be tapped to help cereal crops access nitrogen and help improve yields. <a href="http://agbiome.com/">AgBiome</a> was recently awarded a <a href="http://agbiome.com/agbiome-awarded-grant-from-bill-melinda-gates-foundation/">multi-year grant</a> by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to discover beneficial microbes with the ability to control sweet potato weevils. </p>
<p>This is a beginning. But to catch up with the rest of the world, Africa needs to move faster. A unified microbial research initiative is needed. This would bring together research institutions, private industry and funding agencies and could help lobby resources. </p>
<p>The good will is already there. In 2012 a <a href="http://cavs.uonbi.ac.ke/node/125">conference</a> in Nairobi, Kenya, highlighted the need to identify and advance proven microbial-based agricultural technologies. But a formal, ongoing initiative is needed to follow through on the promise of soil microbial science for Africa.</p>
<p>Healthy soils underpin agriculture and therefore should be given a top priority.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64757/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>was a New Voices Fellow. New Voices is funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation</span></em></p>Microbial-based solutions are perhaps the best-kept secret in agricultural innovation.Esther Ndumi Ngumbi, Research Fellow, Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/596342016-06-09T14:42:32Z2016-06-09T14:42:32ZThe next ‘green revolution’ should focus on hunger – not profit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125718/original/image-20160608-3516-1eg0dei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=84%2C446%2C5319%2C2768&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">avemario / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The “<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=frNfVx-KZOcC&pg=PA1&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">green revolution</a>” of the 1960s delivered vast increases in food production, averting famines and political instability across the world. There are now urgent appeals for a <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html">second green revolution</a> to make food more sustainable, involving climate-adapted crops (some genetically-modified), healthier soil and reduced chemical inputs. Sadly, incentives on offer for agri-tech firms mean our hopes of achieving such a revolution are under grave threat.</p>
<p>As was the case 50 years ago, those who grow our food are tasked with growing healthy plants in the face of drought, lack of nutrients, pests, and diseases. But this is where the similarity ends. In 2016, climate change is already hitting home, wreaking havoc with <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/508.full.pdf+html">patterns of weather</a> and <a href="http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/10/2827">disease</a>. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html">ten billion people</a> will need feeding by 2050, requiring us to produce as much food between now and then as has been produced in the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/world-hunger-50-years-food-history/story?id=8736358">whole of human history</a>. </p>
<p>This isn’t just a technical problem for agricultural scientists. Alongside the challenge of supplying adequate calories in ever harsher environments, we must also tackle some deep-rooted obstacles to a fair and safe food supply.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125915/original/image-20160609-7074-wer8x5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">High-yielding wheat developed at government research institutes in the 1950s and 60s by Nobel-winner Norman Borlaug was distributed across the world – in particular famine-stricken India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://blog.cimmyt.org/from-east-asia-to-south-asia-via-mexico-how-one-gene-changed-the-course-of-history/">CIMMYT</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The economic landscape of agricultural research is radically different to that which enabled the first green revolution. Today, it is overwhelmingly driven by an international private sector, whereas in the past government-funded institutes would develop and distribute better crops and farming techniques. </p>
<p>This shift away from state-funded research poses significant risks when government regulation threatens profits, as evidenced by the recent debate over the re-licencing of the herbicide glyphosate. The argument here should be about the trade-off between the weed-killing benefits of a chemical versus possible negative effects on <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045%2815%2970134-8/abstract">human health</a> and the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929139313001923">environment</a>. However, the profitability of glyphosate-containing herbicides and glyphosate-tolerant crop plants is dependent upon its legality. As a result, conflicts of interest between profits and safety are the true drivers of such controversies, leading to <a href="http://lobbyfacts.eu/">industrial-scale lobbying</a> by agri-tech which undermines the potential for EU regulators to make a balanced decision.</p>
<p>Of equal concern is the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/sti/sci-tech/24508541.pdf">rampant patenting of the biological resources</a> which underlie our food systems. As we obtain more and more information from crop genomes, the scientific process of sharing one’s research should facilitate huge improvements in crop production around the world. Instead, each additional level of biological information has provided a further opportunity for these crops to become ever more exclusive, based on the ability to pay for access rather than a requirement.</p>
<p>The profitability of patents is also distorting the priorities of agri-tech and research institutes. For instance, engineering so-called “resistance” genes into a crop suffering from a microbial disease is a <a href="http://www.google.com/patents/WO2003000906A2?cl=en">readily patentable process</a>. In addition, once a microbe evolves to overcome the resistance gene, the farmer must then purchase a different variety which has been genetically engineered with the next line of defence. Both of these factors have the potential to push research away from a more multi-layered approach to crop protection and more towards those “innovations” which can be licenced for profit.</p>
<p>Finally, the idea in most privatised sectors is that competition between different companies promotes innovation and maintains fair prices for consumers. This simply isn’t the case in agri-tech. At present, just <a href="http://www.etcgroup.org/sites/www.etcgroup.org/files/files/etc_breakbad_23dec15.pdf">three companies</a> own a staggering 51% of the world’s agri-chemicals and 55% of the world’s commercial seed varieties. This situation is only worsening, as these <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/may/05/monsanto-dow-syngenta-rush-for-mega-mergers-puts-food-security-at-risk">companies seek mergers</a> to consolidate their market share and increase investment potential. </p>
<p>Such concentration of power over the price and distribution of products is rarely tolerated in other industries, and it is particularly worrying to see such a monopoly over our means to grow food. If access to the knowledge gained during the second green revolution is to be shaped by market forces, we should at least ensure that this is a market with competition.</p>
<p>It should be possible to avert a global food crisis, but we must start by <a href="https://theconversation.com/royal-society-president-gm-crops-feed-much-of-the-world-today-why-not-tomorrows-generations-59715">reframing the debate</a>. Most public discussion of food security is dominated by an anti-science lobby that is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/may/27/gm-crops-food-security-calestous-juma-africa">highly sceptical</a> about the safety of GM-technology, when all GM crops really represent is a small part of a complex solution. </p>
<p>The deeper issue lies in the ownership of the technology we need to grow food, and the way that science and intellectual property have been misappropriated. We require nothing less than a total <a href="http://osseeds.org/faqs/">restructuring</a> of the global agri-tech sector – only then can we ensure billions more people can sustainably feed themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59634/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will Buswell receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, a charitable trust which provides grants and scholarships for research and education.</span></em></p>Ensuring the next 10 billion people are fed fairly will require a radical restructuring of global agri-tech.Will, PhD Student in Plant Immunity, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/527152016-01-08T13:43:09Z2016-01-08T13:43:09ZGM foods: big biotech is quietly winning the war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107169/original/image-20160104-28997-amiycq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rush and a push and the land is ours ...</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=1GRT-yNpLhTTVFK9Vr-ilA&searchterm=winning%20war&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=340682912">Memmore</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It must have been 1996 or 1997 when I first met someone from Monsanto. The anti-GM movement in the UK had by then already acquired some momentum and Monsanto was cast as the <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/1997/12/15/the-monsanto-monster/">prime villain</a> for seeking to import GM soya into Europe, though other seed producers were receiving similar treatment. I asked my contact why Monsanto allowed itself to be castigated in such a way. “It never occurred to us that anybody would be interested in plant breeding,” he replied. “They never had been in the past.” </p>
<p>Though hindsight is a wonderful thing, the industry should maybe not have been so surprised at the opposition when it <a href="https://theconversation.com/seeds-of-doubt-why-consumers-weigh-up-gm-produce-and-turn-it-down-50106">began to market</a> its insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops in the mid-1990s. Some readers might recall <a href="https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Bacterial_nucleation_in_pseudomonas_syringae">efforts in the mid-1980s</a> to delete a gene that made plants more susceptible to frost damage, which led to the development of “Ice Minus” bacteria. The <a href="http://modernfarmer.com/2014/05/even-first-gmo-field-tests-controversial-will-ever-end-fight/">spectacle of</a> scientists in moon suits spraying Ice Minus on strawberry and potato plants in California made global headlines. Despite the fact that the bacteria did improve the plants’ protection against frost, long legal battles with opponents concerned about the effects on the environment were one of the main reasons the project was abandoned. </p>
<h2>The rise of environmentalism</h2>
<p>You can trace the anti-GM movement to two things. First, increasing disillusion, especially in Europe, with the progress of left-wing ideologies in the former Soviet Union and its allies. And second, a growing awareness of environmental problems in the years following the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark attack on synthetic pesticides, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/dec/07/why-rachel-carson-is-a-saint">Silent Spring</a>. These created a breeding ground in which movements like anti-GM could flourish: as the socialist cause faded, environmentalism began to take its place. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107170/original/image-20160104-28985-1xqrn0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1001&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usepagov/15011159418/in/photolist-oSu7Hq-5jwyYt-4DTVS2-6cRtyK-6cVBFm-9veNn9-6bEuaB-bachxH-iym7DN-h6NjWR-7oqAg8-eaGpGa-eaN3F3-eaN3BE-MFm45-4Kier9-c65jTW-5RxkRb-69rVmD-bF6VGg-dgdX68-67TovS-wu7wzZ-qzUe6P-qUWaNU-74gEJE-rcwaYg-qUW9Zj-eeJRYT-8K4ijo-9u85ns-9u84VY-9u54ZD-9u53F2-9u55wc-9u55SF-5JHHuo-as9mMP-6dxBMK-6Fkuod-7WJfjG-qfHmjT-bpWRVF-62Yt1W-4TNR5U-4TJBzR-4TNPdf-9gpSyK-pwQrd5-ehaHHv">USEPPA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Helping this along were scores of green politicians who saw political advantage in adopting postures which could frighten the population with threats to their food, and commercial interests such as the organic food industry which may have seen GM as a threat to their own brands and market shares – although it didn’t explain its opposition in that way. </p>
<p>This was the potential maelstrom into which agribiotech companies launched their first projects. The objections erupted primarily in Europe, reaching the US only ten years later (in the form of opponents seeking local GM bans and a <a href="http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/976/ge-food-labeling/us-polls-on-ge-food-labeling">nationwide campaign</a> for GM labelling). Yet even in Europe, the opposition was far from universal in the early days. Between 1995 and 1997, for example, GM tomato purée <a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-bans-on-gm-produce-in-british-supermarkets-51153">was sold</a> in two UK supermarket chains without incident. </p>
<p>It was only in 1997 when the anti-GM row really got going over the import of GM soya into Europe. At the time, some environmental pressure groups were in need of a new vehicle through which to channel protest – for example Greenpeace <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/greenpeaces-brent-spar-apology-1599647.html">had backtracked and apologised</a> for publicising a seriously mistaken estimate of the amount of oil left onboard the Brent Spar storage buoy. Accordingly, these organisations adopted a vigorous and at times violent opposition to all things GM, including imports and, above all, their cultivation on European soil. They frightened enough people to create a public outcry. The media became largely anti-GM, in Europe at least. Retailers <a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-bans-on-gm-produce-in-british-supermarkets-51153">began to</a> remove GM products from their shelves, although their approach was far from coherent. The seed producers battled on but to little effect.</p>
<h2>In from the cold</h2>
<p>Fast-forward 15 years and the environment has improved somewhat for GM in Europe. The UK media, for instance, now <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jun/13/gm-crops-environment-study">tends to be</a> more in favour than against. There is more pro-GM media coverage than there once was even in Germany, a country still generally more determinedly opposed than England (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-33833958">Scotland</a>, <a href="http://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/wales-bans-gm-crops-to-protect-organic-farming.htm">Wales</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34316778">Northern Ireland</a> also take a more anti-approach). </p>
<p>Supermarket opposition has softened in the UK, too. Recent changes to EU rules <a href="https://theconversation.com/gm-crops-an-uneasy-truce-hangs-over-europe-48835">have made</a> GM crop cultivation more likely in a handful of countries, including England, the Czech Republic, Romania and Spain. My sense is that much of the European public has become bored with the issue, even in countries whose governments remain opposed. GM is meanwhile <a href="https://theconversation.com/gm-crops-and-the-developing-world-opposing-sides-miss-the-bigger-picture-50479">very successful</a> in the Americas and parts of Asia and Australia, while growing perceptibly in Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107171/original/image-20160104-29003-wu9wr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Put a GM sock in it.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=Y9MXZdeIbCUFsBZnytGNXQ&searchterm=public%20bored&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=262932707">Jane0606</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through all of this, the major agribiotech companies have focused on quietly selling themselves to people prepared to listen, and publishing various accounts of their technical and scientific advances. In Europe, they work with the industry group <a href="http://www.europabio.org">EuropaBio</a> to represent their interests in the corridors and conference centres of the EU. In the past few years, the industry seems essentially to have given up on cultivating GM crops in the European countries where it is not welcome, focusing instead on the places that want the technology. But it is keen to maintain imports into Europe of GM products, particularly animal feedstuffs, which are widely used. </p>
<p>Agribiotech no doubt did make mistakes in the early days of GM by failing to anticipate the strength of the opposition. But maybe the need to commercialise the products made this unavoidable. Certainly the industry remains unpopular in some quarters: Monsanto in particular is still seen by activist protesters as a large and visible target. But whether the general public subscribes to such views, or ever really did, is much less certain. Ultimately that is the only thing that matters, even if there is still some way to go to persuade everyone yet. </p>
<p><em>For more coverage of the debate around GM crops, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/gm-food">click here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof Moses is Chairman of CropGen, a public information organisation in the UK originally supported by the agricultural biotechnology industry. He consults to the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, and has received funding from the EU as coordinator of three projects to explore the public understanding of and consumer attitudes to agricultural biotechnology in a number of countries in the EU and elsewhere.</span></em></p>Monsanto an other biotech companies got caught short in the 1990s. But since then, the GM argument has been moving in their direction.Vivian Moses, Visiting Professor of Biotechnology, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/515262015-12-02T11:43:44Z2015-12-02T11:43:44ZThe elephant in the room at Paris climate talks: why food production must change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103749/original/image-20151130-10285-1epevys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rotten to the core. Can Paris help create a less wasteful food system?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/maggyver/5943153/in/photolist-9bMXmH-jQKMQe-kJY7NY-8VTAT3-4NDcAy-8nibAi-dcsHKT-9qPv7S-6v6e11-oDy4RT-cEhimf-easRzQ-oYgwM4-qBqajG-9BowUw-wsGa-9DnVuf-9Cba1W-hMoQ4Q-9nvUPe-9iPHRa-d266pu-moQTvk-8Hjz4X-x3Wwxt-pVkCuY-pEyehP-7qaJS-3aqKZ-hB8XY6-4orJr7-fK3vgM-s2icLL-kfR4WM-p2BGkj-prV5WA-4Qf3eC-9gUMVQ-dyEAKu-kJY7bA-53ToSy-ayY6Dn-kMEemK-EaGa9-9jEywT-aZJVwk-9r2EQP-wESiX-gziNgD-fNJAz1">Maggie Houtz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The grand political narratives around the COP21 conference in Paris will barely touch on one crucial aspect – food. The Paris talks are of vital importance, not just for climate change itself but for framing what kind of food economy follows. And why does food matter for climate change? Well, it’s a major factor driving it yet barely gets a mention. </p>
<p>From growing food to processing and packaging it, from transporting to selling it, cooking it, eating it and throwing it away – the whole chain contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock alone makes up 14.5% of all anthropogenic <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/">greenhouse gas emissions</a>. And agriculture emissions have increased rapidly in the last decade, as <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/216137/icode/">global diets and tastes change</a>. Deforestation and forest degradation (often because of agricultural expansion) cause an estimated <a href="http://www.unep.org/climatechange/reddplus/Introduction/tabid/29525/Default.aspx">17% of global greenhouse gas emissions</a>. </p>
<p>People used to argue that this was a regrettable cost of progress. But most analysts now think differently, reminding us that the current food system is failing many. <a href="http://www.fao.org/hunger/key-messages/en/">Almost 800m people in the world are hungry</a>, at least two billion <a href="http://www.fao.org/about/what-we-do/so1/en/">are not getting enough nutrients</a>, and <a href="http://www.who.int/gho/ncd/risk_factors/overweight/en/">1.9 billon adults are overweight or obese</a> (39% of all adults over 18 years of age). Meanwhile, a third of all food produced globally is <a href="http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/">lost or wasted</a>. </p>
<h2>Consumers are voters</h2>
<p>Sobering evidence like this has mounted for years but climate change policy makers have focused on energy rather than food. This policy blind spot is because tackling food emissions means tackling consumers. And consumers vote. Politicians have endless rationalisations for inaction: eating more is a sign of affluence and cheaper food is an indicator of prosperity. Don’t meddle with food – it’s about freedom of choice. So the result is that both Right and Left would rather not confront or help their voters. </p>
<p>Many politicians also think that tackling food emissions would mean they’d have to persuade business to take the issue seriously. It’s true that some agribusinesses are hostile to change, but <a href="http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/231185/icode/">others have read</a> the <a href="http://www.weforum.org/projects/new-vision-agriculture">writing on the wall</a>. Even some nervous politicians see the folly of food waste.</p>
<p>The waste issue exposes the inefficiencies of the food system <a href="http://www.unep.org/wed/2013/quickfacts/">that have emerged in recent decades</a>. More food is being produced, processed and consumed, yet more is also being wasted. </p>
<p>Pressure to do something about food around COP21 was signalled when some “Big Food” companies went public about worries that they – not just the poor – will be destabilised by climate change. Coca Cola, Walmart and PepsiCo have signed up to US president Barack Obama’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/27/fact-sheet-white-house-launches-american-business-act-climate-pledge">American Business Act on Climate</a> promising to reduce their carbon emissions. In the UK, meanwhile, <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b4dcdef8-9524-11e5-ac15-0f7f7945adba.html#axzz3t0CGsSvl">Tesco, Nestle and Unilever</a> have reportedly urged David Cameron to rethink his policy on cutting green energy subsidies.</p>
<h2>Locked in</h2>
<p>But Big Food cannot sort out climate change. It is locked into the issue of unsustainable food, too – in hock to consumers who have become used to what an industrialised globalised food system offers them. So are we doomed? </p>
<p>No. But we do need a new framework. Since neither Big Food, nor consumers, nor individual political parties can tackle this issue alone, what’s needed is a systemic approach. We need to recognise the different players on the global food stage, their different relationships, their different perspectives. We need to understand that food emissions are happening within a broader social, economic, cultural and environmental context. Such thinking is emerging in the consumer <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/news-and-media/news/2014/05/global-obesity-report/">response to obesity</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103750/original/image-20151130-10269-hcl8ul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is Big Food a slave to its shoppers?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/n1ct4yl0r/9721353130/in/photolist-fP3tAJ-wyXCR-cUtqLW-6xYGi-7CX4d9-7yA8FH-5YmQ7d-5NxbZ1-63x6gv-c8Vz5C-C8FQ-K1EaH-7q8SxW-7q8TTQ-7q4XxX-akFknF-5GGdGZ-dTSd2f-5nwWDs-Bwxri-3P49Um-3ggYHf-8DkxKs-9Vi67J-fv5vZ1-86kRtz-2dEdK-9G5Wba-7oHk5P-j44bK-71dZ3m-6bC7Nn-7ojt9X-nmHqgd-8dW7Tp-5GR7kW-BSjM6-71vuxX-5KPPXE-8bqsYU-b5kKwH-7tspdo-8bqs9d-8bncZF-EiRjo-JgyHe-cWSvoy-78SuPq-5ct5g-76VYn8">Nic Taylor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Systemic change is easier said than done, of course. But we take heart from the fact that the kind of food culture and food system that now contributes to climate change and many other health and environmental problems was created by humans, so humans can now chart a different course. At the academic level, our <a href="http://www.ifstal.ac.uk">Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning programme (IFSTAL)</a> is building the kind of interdisciplinary thinking – from anthropology to zoology – which we need to reframe food systems in the long term public interest.</p>
<p>At the policy level, politicians must accept the systemic nature of the problem. No single interest group or politician can resolve this on their own. Next, they must agree a phased 30-year change of course from what is the legacy of 70 years of building a food system oriented mainly on increasing output. New indicators are needed. Not on the amount of food – there is already huge over-production – but the number of <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034015/media">people fed per hectare</a>. Productionism <a href="https://www.routledge.com/sustainability/posts/8617">is out of date</a>. The future is about sustainable systems <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3022e.pdf">delivering sustainable diets</a>.</p>
<p>While the arguments are over the numbers and targets, there surely ought to be a commitment to shift away from diets and production systems which are high in emissions. This almost certainly means more horticulture and less meat and dairy, a food culture which would also be good for health, jobs and environment. </p>
<p>Getting the whole food system to change is a seriously big challenge. But one thing is clear: no change in food means no gain in climate change prevention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Lang receives funding from Esmee Fairbairn Foundation (for the Food Research Collaboration) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (for IFSTAL). He is a Trustee of Borough Market, London. He is Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Wells works as a Teaching Fellow for IFSTAL at City University London. IFSTAL receives funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. She has been working as a freelance journalist for The Institute of Food Safety, Integrity and Protection and Sustain the Alliance for Better Food and Farming. </span></em></p>The food on our tables is central to the #COP21 debate and any Paris agreement must help build a system that moves us a long way from our current habits.Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy, City, University of LondonRebecca Wells, Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Food Policy, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/488352015-10-09T09:54:43Z2015-10-09T09:54:43ZGM crops: an uneasy truce hangs over Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97778/original/image-20151008-9659-1a3zs46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Staple food</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&searchterm=GM%20crops&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=126284900">Solmule</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most EU member states <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/most-eu-nations-seek-bar-gm-crops-145652899.html#mEcgCiq">have now exercised</a> a new conditional <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.ie/2015/03/choosing-to-go-gm-free-new-eu-legal.html">legal right</a> to prevent GM crops from being cultivated within their own territories. This is the first time they have been able to do so since the EU started regulating the technology more than 20 years ago. It represents a compromise attempt by the European Commission to overcome a status quo where <a href="http://www.europabio.org/which-gm-crops-can-be-cultivated-eu">only one</a> GM crop is cultivated in the EU and member states <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-952_en.htm">impose national bans</a> based on safety concerns. </p>
<p>When the deadline for exercising the right expired on October 3, it ended a transitional period where member states could take the “easy option” to restrict GM cultivation in part or all of their territories. There will be other chances later, but with more substantial hurdles. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97786/original/image-20151008-9679-syx3zp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>GM crops have been highly contentious within the EU. Once a crop <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/animalnutrition/labelling/Reg_1829_2003_en.pdf">received</a> EU <a href="http://www.biosafety.be/GB/Dir.Eur.GB/Del.Rel./2001_18/2001_18_TC.html">authorisation</a>, it automatically applied across all member states – irrespective of who voted yes or no. Indeed, crops can even be authorised where the majority of members are opposed, under rules that <a href="https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofPoliticsInternationalStudiesandPhilosophy/FileStore/EuropeanisationFiles/Filetoupload,38422,en.pdf">state that</a> crops permitted in one state can be grown in any (this happened with <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31997D0098">Novartis BT176 maize</a> in the 1990s, for example). </p>
<p>Some member states and regions have resisted by establishing the <a href="http://gmofree-euroregions.regione.marche.it">GMO-Free Network</a> and invoking so-called “<a href="http://www.loc.gov/law/help/restrictions-on-gmos/eu.php">safeguard clauses</a>” that permit temporary bans on a crop at national level where new information demonstrates a risk to human health or the environment. Some members have also pushed for greater freedom to restrict cultivation at national level, while the commission has been delaying authorising new crops to avoid conflict. </p>
<p>The European Court of Justice <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d2dc30dd606cddbd82224367bd0ba723ef88e5a6.e34KaxiLc3qMb40Rch0SaxuRbhf0?text=&docid=142241&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=487442">condemned</a> the commission for these delays in 2013. There has also been the possibility for further action before the World Trade Organisation, as the situation mirrors a previous de facto moratorium <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/624a88c6-97db-11da-816b-0000779e2340.html#axzz3nxpJapad">that ran</a> between 1999 and 2003 and was <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/trade/wto-panel-rules-eu-gmo-moratorium-illegal/article-152341">condemned by</a> the organisation following pressure from the US and Canada.</p>
<h2>The new approach</h2>
<p>The commission proposed the new rules back in 2010. It proposed that risk assessment and management would remain harmonised at the EU level, while members could impose post-authorisation restrictions. After much wrangling, this led to <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:JOL_2015_068_R_0001">Directive 2015/412</a> coming into force in April. It aims to give more sceptical states such as Austria and Italy the freedom to choose to prevent cultivation while potentially enabling more enthusiastic territories such as Spain and England to cultivate crops that have not yet been authorised. </p>
<p>The directive allows member states to request geographical restrictions while a crop is being authorised (or reauthorised) without providing reasons, subject to the applicant biotech company not objecting. In the case of crops that are already authorised, member states can unilaterally impose restrictions if they can demonstrate they are necessary to protect a “compelling ground” (the directive contains a non-exhaustive list). The company and other interested parties can raise a legal challenge, however. </p>
<p>The transitional phase that ended on October 3 enabled members to use the first option to prevent cultivation of the one GM crop with EU authorisation – Monsanto’s MON810 maize – and the eight crop applications going through the authorisation process. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97781/original/image-20151008-9675-1dqchde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Splice of life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/GM+crops/search.html?page=3&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=85099198">Pedrosala</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Effective compromise?</h2>
<p>Of the 19 member states which met the deadline to apply to prevent GM cultivation, the first two have already been waived through by the biotech companies in question and the remainder look likely to receive the same treatment. The hope from the companies is that these members will be willing to vote in favour of authorisations in future, or at least not attempt to block them – and that they will lift their safeguard-clause bans and not resort to new ones, since they feed wider concerns over safety. </p>
<p>The longer-term position is less clear, though. Preliminary findings from my research funded by the British Academy, involving interviews of member representatives, indicate that the opt-out will make some states less likely to create safeguard measures, but have little to no impact on votes on authorisations. It is true that crops may nonetheless be authorised either by qualified majority votes or by the commission where there is a hung vote. Where the commission was wary of forcing through authorisations in the past, it may feel the system is now sufficiently flexible to make this acceptable. </p>
<p>But even then, lack of member support lengthens the process for approving a new crop and removes the incentives for applicant companies to agree to exclude particular territories from their applications or waive their right to challenge a restriction of an existing authorisation. You can understand member states feeling that they have to be consistent in their approach to a particular crop at national and EU level, but there is a danger that applicant companies may see no reason to rubber-stamp restrictions if the same countries are going to obstruct them at the EU level anyway. </p>
<p>For members seeking restrictions who don’t get the blessing of the applicant company, if the EU grants an approval for a crop, they are then reduced to making “compelling grounds” arguments for a unilateral restriction. It may be a difficult argument to win. Justifications on grounds of environmental protection are limited under the directive. And because the rules permit local restrictions, it makes it harder to argue that an outright prohibition across a whole country is justified. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if member states are prevented from opting out, the danger swings the other way: they may fall back into their well trodden paths and resort to safeguard clauses, threaten to block authorisations and generally make the whole authorisation process tortuous. </p>
<p>So the October 3 deadline was only one step in this debate. If both the EU’s member states and the biotech companies can demonstrate flexibility, more crops might be authorised and safeguard measures might be lifted. Directive 2015/412 would then look like a workable truce. If not, it will not be long before the EU’s long conflict over GM crops resumes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary receives funding from the British Academy for some future research relating to genetically modified crops
</span></em></p>New EU rules on GM attempt to unblock logjam that has hung over the technology in the region for most of this century. To work, anti-GM member states and Big Biotech will need to cooperate.Mary Dobbs, Lecturer in Law, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/195012013-10-24T05:21:19Z2013-10-24T05:21:19ZBig data lets global corps bet on the threat of climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/33610/original/rmt3288k-1382546153.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Big agriculture, big data, big weather. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chemophilia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent news of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2013/10/02/monsanto-buys-climate-corp-for-930-million/">Monsanto’s US$930m acquisition</a> of data science company Climate Corporation, raises important questions about the economies developing in response to climate change.</p>
<p>A new generation of companies have emerged that harness new methods of data analysis to turn vast datasets (“big data”) into exploitable, marketable information. As the Financial Times <a href="http://blogs.ft.com/tech-blog/2013/10/with-climate-corp-deal-big-data-comes-of-age/?">reported</a>, Monsanto’s purchase signals the first significant “big data” acquisition.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.climate.com/">Climate Corporation</a> offers an online self-service weather insurance for US farmers. In addition to the company’s standard crop insurance, this <a href="http://www.climate.com/growers/faqs">Total Weather Insurance</a> pays out solely on the basis of observed weather conditions, rather than crop damage. If the observed weather conditions trigger a pay-out, a cheque is automatically generated and arrives within days of the end of the policy coverage period.</p>
<p>In order to calculate the price of policies and pay-outs, Climate Corporation data scientists analyse <a href="http://www.concurrentinc.com/case-studies/climate-corp/">three million new data points</a> a day from 22 datasets using advanced analysis techniques. The data comes from a range of third-party providers such as the <a href="http://www.weather.gov/">US National Weather Service</a>, which publishes its data free for re-use.</p>
<h2>Old dog, new tricks</h2>
<p>Total Weather Insurance is a new form of financial product being sold direct to farmers, but what underlies it is not new. Weather derivatives were developed by the likes of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1780075.stm">Enron</a>, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html">Koch Industries</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/herman-cain-aquila-gas-utility_n_1104860.html">Aquila</a> in the mid-1990s. Enron found insurance companies were unwilling to insure against non-extreme weather events, so the company created its own, which worked in a similar way to Total Weather Insurance, paying out if certain conditions are met, regardless of any actual loss. By presenting it as a derivative, and therefore a financial product rather than an insurance product, Enron could skirt the regulatory constraints placed on energy companies’ use of insurance products.</p>
<p>Weather derivative contracts can be traded across any type of weather, the most popular by far are based on the divergence of the average daily temperature from 18 degrees. These products are known as Heating and Cooling Degree Days contracts. The mid-2000s saw massive growth in the weather derivatives market, but it crashed alongside everything else in 2008.</p>
<p>However, the <a href="http://www.wrma.org/pdf/WRMA%20PwC%202009%20Survey%20press%20release.pdf">Weather Risk Management Association</a> is hopeful for weather derivatives, pointing to continuing growth outside the US markets throughout the downturn, <a href="http://www.wrma.org/pdf/WRMA2011IndustrySurveypressreleaseFINAL.pdf">growing interest</a> in non-temperature-related weather derivatives, and increasing interest from outside the energy industry.</p>
<h2>Free the data</h2>
<p>Until recently, UK traders had to purchase weather data from the Met Office in order to conduct forecast analyses and price weather derivatives contracts. The financial services sector has long complained that the weather risk and derivatives markets in the UK have been restrained by the lack of freely available weather data, and accordingly have lobbied for a data access and re-use policy similar to the USA. In 2011, the new coalition government obliged, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61959/Further_detail_on_Open_Data_measures_in_the_Autumn_Statement_2011.pdf">announcing</a> that, as part of its Open Government Data initiative, “the largest volume of high quality weather data and information made available by a national meteorological organisation anywhere in the world” would be opened for anyone to re-use without charge.</p>
<p>The entrance of Monsanto into the weather risk market represents the growing interest in these products outside of the energy sector – in this case agriculture. The combination of increasing amounts of freely available and re-usable weather data, the development of more advanced big data analysis techniques, the growing global demand for a variety of weather products, and the development of simple online self-service portals for buyers all suggest that the exploitation of unstable weather systems is still in its early days.</p>
<h2>Big players, big risks</h2>
<p>Crucially, these developments expand the range of players with a financial interest in continuing climate instability. Whilst the claim is often made that weather derivatives and similar products balance out the financial impact of weather on affected businesses, thus smoothing adaptation to climate change, serious political-economic questions do arise about who actually benefits from these financial products.</p>
<p>The model of paying out based upon observed weather means, in effect, placing bets on future weather conditions – rather than a business insuring itself against a specific loss. Clearly, during a time of instability in global weather, there is a lot of potential profit to be generated from such financial products. The emergence of this developing data-driven weather derivatives and risk market is, therefore, troubling. </p>
<p>It exploits common threats in order to generate private wealth and favours those in a financial position to protect their interests at the expense of those most vulnerable to climate instabilities. Most dangerously, this practice could reduce the incentive for those profiting from these markets to engage in action to mitigate climate change.</p>
<p><em>This article also appears on the <a href="http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/comment/">SPERI blog</a> at the University of Sheffield</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Bates does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The recent news of Monsanto’s US$930m acquisition of data science company Climate Corporation, raises important questions about the economies developing in response to climate change. A new generation…Jo Bates, Lecturer in Information Studies and Society, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.