The biotechnology industry advertises GM Pharm and industrial crops as a new and profitable agricultural innovation, which will provide farmers with vastly increased incomes.  It often faultly implies that farmers can grow these crops employing traditional growing methods, using production practices that will involve no extra expense. There is little information supplied to farmers about how growing GM Pharm and industrial crops may adversely effect the soil, crops and animals on their land, or what difficulties they may encounter with neighbouring farmers and the wider community. There is little or no attempt to inform farmers about the possible health effects from growing and handling these crops, or of the liability risks they are undertaking in the absence of insurance cover. Will the premium farmers receive from growing GM Pharm and industrial crops compensate them for the extra costs and risks they will undertake in converting their production to GM?

Will farmers incur extra expenses growing GM Pharm and industrial crops? 

In the wake of a contamination crisis in the USA, where a GM medicine crop contaminated a food crop intended for human consumption, the US government, on March the 6^th 2003, tightened the regulations on growing GM Pharm crops: 

1) Bigger separation distances between GM crops and conventional crops were imposed;
2) special training for farmers on how to manage GM crops was made mandatory;
3) machinery and equipment dedicated solely to growing GM Pharm crops was made a requirement – and –
4) more frequent government inspections were imposed.
These measures mean that farmers cannot grow GM Pharm crops in the traditional way.  They cannot plant GM medicine crops near other crops, they must buy special machinery and equipment to handle these crops, they will need to undergo special training on how to plant, manage and harvest these crops, and they will be subject to increased government inspections. Concerned scientists believe these measures are not strict enough to avoid further contamination crises.  If their misgivings become a reality, further regulation will be imposed with the likely result that farmers will incur more stringent management procedures and more expense as a result.
 

Can farmers grow GM Pharm and industrial crops using traditional farming methods? 

Because GM medicine and chemical crops contain biologically active compounds that cannot be allowed to enter the animal feed supply or human food chain, some farmers will find the precautionary measures associated with the growing of GM medicine crops impossible to implement.  Farmers who grow conventional crops used for animal feed, farmers who grow food crops intended for human consumption, and farmers who breed animals for sale (and who sell animal by-products like meat, eggs, milk), will have great difficulty keeping GM pollen, GM seed and GM crop residues from contaminating his conventional production. These ‘hidden costs’ may well off-set the extra premium he receives for his GM production. 

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‘Volunteer’ Crops – Farmers who may want to grow conventional crops in a field used the previous year for GM medicine crops may well have a problem with ‘volunteer’ crops.  Seeds from a GM crop grown one year may germinate in the field the following year and thereby contaminate the new season’s crop. Controlling GM ‘volunteers’ could require careful field inspections to identify ‘volunteer’ plants and heavy use of expensive pesticides to kill them.

Are there liability issues of concern to farmers who produce GM Pharm and industrial crops?

Government regulations may stipulate that biotech companies can be held liable for damages resulting from contamination by GM Pharm and industrial crops - but this does not resolve liability problems for farmers. The biotech industry has moved the production of medicines and chemicals out of factories (where they would be responsible for contaminiation incidents), and into the farmer’s domain (where they may be liable for contamination of the environment or food supply).  

Farmers have, in effect, become low cost production units for the biotech industry and are therefore implicated in liability issues. There are a variety of situations where the farmer may be held liable for damages as a result of growing GM medicine and industrial crops.  For example:

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If a farmer’s GM drug crop contaminates a neighbour’s field, the neighbour could sue on the basis of trespass, nuisance, negligence or strict liability. Such damages would include financial loss from inability to sell a contaminated crop or loss of conventional or organic status.

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Farmers may find they are held liable for breach of contract or infringement of a biotech company’s ‘intellectual rights’.  Many biotech companies in the USA require farmers to sign contracts, which protect their ‘intellectual rights’ by prohibiting farmers from saving seed for use the following year. (This is done to ensure that farmers must buy new seed each year). However, the ‘intellectual rights’ issue has legal implications for farmers whose land inadvertently becomes contaminated with GM seeds.  This means that farmers who do not grow GM crops and who have never signed a contract with a biotech company can be held liable if GM seeds from a neighbour’s farm contaminate his land. Farmers in the USA have been successfully sued by biotechnology companies who found GM plants on their land, which arrived there by the spread of seeds from neighbouring farms.

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Farmers may find themselves liable for accidental consumption or theft of GM medicine and chemical plants.  If a child, tourist, neighbour or guest were to accidentally pick or consume GM plants from a field, the farmer might be held liable for any ensuing health or contamination consequences.

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(See D. Moeller, GMO liability threat to farmers; Legal issues surrounding the planting of GM crops, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Genetically Engineered Food Alert, in collaboration with The Farmer-to-Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering (November 2001).)

Farmers in USA have suffered fines and bankruptcies from lawsuits imposed against them by Monsanto, a US biotech company.

A report issued on January the 13^th 2005 by the Washington based Center for Food Safety (CFS) details Monsanto’s use and abuse of US patent law to control American farmers. The purpose of the report was to highlight how American farmers have been effected by litigation (lawsuits) arising from the use of patented GM crops. Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of CFS has said, “Monsanto would like nothing more than to be the sole source for staple crop seeds in this country and around the world”, and further, “These lawsuits and settlements are nothing less than corporate extortion of American farmers.”  The report finds that, in general, Monsanto’s effort to prosecute farmers can be divided into three stages: investigations of farmers; out-of-court settlements; and litigation. The report finds that Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits against American farmers in 25 states that involve 147 farmers and 39 small businesses or farm companies.  Monsanto has set aside an annual budget of $10 million dollars and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting farmers.

(The above quotations are from a press release dated 13^th of January 2005 and can be found, together with the report Monsanto vs. US farmers, on CFS´s website www.centerforfoodsafety.org.)

Is it possible to obtain an insurance policy, which will cover liability claims resulting from growing GM Pharm and industrial crops?

The insurance industry does not issue insurance policies which cover the production of GM food crops or GM Pharm and industrial crops. Swiss re-insurance company Rueck concluded in 1998 that there was no satisfactory way to evaluate the risks of genetically engineered crops and thus offer appropriate coverage (EMS 2000).  In 1999, Maurice Pullen, an underwriting manager for Ciga International, warned business insurers of the risks of covering Genetically Modified Organisms:  “Our experience with asbestos, PCBs and other ‘miracle’ products in the past should have warned us of the potential dangers of diving into issues, before we have an adequate awareness the exposures” (see the report Manufacturing Drugs and Chemicals in Crops, compiled by Bill Freese for Genetically Engineered Food Alert (2002), p. 71). If biotech companies cannot obtain insurance cover for GM product production then it is highly unlikely that farmers will be able to.  Farmers who undertake to become  ‘low cost production units’ for biotech companies will have to bear any financial liability incurred for claims made against them.

Are there health implications for farmers who grow GM Pharm and industrial crops?   

Farmers, their families, farm workers and biotech company employees who are continually handling GM medicine and chemical crops may have their health put at risk by over exposure to the chemicals they contain. All parts of GM Pharm and industrial plants (roots, stems, leaves, seeds,) carry GM material and therefore people who handle these crops regularly will breath in pollen and dust and absorb biopharmaceuticals through their skin. Farmers may need to investigate what, if any,  legal and financial recourse they may have if health problems occur.