From Monday Style
The Seeds of Change
'Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the
Future of Food' by Daniel Charles
By Marc Kaufman,
a reporter for The Post's national staff
Monday, November 26, 2001; Page C02
LORDS OF THE HARVEST Genetically modified foods have become a staple of the American diet; not
surprisingly, they are a featured item on the nation's journalistic menu as
well. StarLink corn, Roundup Ready wheat and Bt soybeans have all become
familiar to news and supermarket consumers alike -- sometimes because of their
promise, sometimes because of their potential consequences and sometimes because
things already have gone wrong. Advocates on both sides are eager to instruct
the public in how to greet some of the most important new technologies on Earth. But because the science can seem so complex and unfathomable -- and the story
of the birth and spread of bioengineered foods so quickly contentious -- most
people outside the debate don't really know what to think. Will the new
technologies help feed poor and hungry people and limit the use of nasty
chemical pesticides? Or will they cause genetic pollution and give a handful of
global corporations dangerous control over the world's basic foods? "Lords of the Harvest," by former National Public Radio reporter
Daniel Charles, offers an accessible, well-reported account of how genetically
modified crops became so widespread and why they have raised such a commotion. Charles grew up on a Pennsylvania farm that still supports his brother's
family; he knows that farmers could benefit greatly from a technology that can
make their fields more productive and their lives somewhat easier. He has the
scientific curiosity needed to write about the fast-moving discoveries of
agricultural biotechnology with the clarity and amazement they deserve. But he
is also a journalist -- a paid skeptic -- and he finds a fair amount to be
skeptical about. The story opens at a fateful 1983 scientific meeting in Miami. Researchers
had been competing furiously to transform plant cells using just-discovered
technologies to transfer genes from one species into another. Several claimed
success in Miami, and the race to patent new plant life forms began. Charles
traces that race through the personal stories of the men and women involved --
their motivations, their breakthroughs and their disappointments. He takes pains
along the way to make the science behind the discovery comprehensible. Inevitably, the story leads to the Monsanto Co. in St. Louis, a traditional
chemical company that during the 1980s transformed itself into the giant of
agricultural biotech. Monsanto had a bold vision for the future of food; it also
had the business tenacity and possibly monopolistic ambitions of Microsoft. It
soon came to define the technology and, with much the same force, comes to
dominate the remainder of "Lords of the Harvest." Charles argues that Monsanto's rise to power hurt the promise of biotech
foods. The company did develop products that many farmers liked -- especially a
strain of crops genetically modified to make pest and weed control much easier.
Today about 70 percent of soy and cotton grown in the United States is
genetically engineered, as is more than a quarter of the corn. But Monsanto also
pioneered an agricultural business model that emphasized exclusive uses and
patent rights in ways that appalled many farmers. Company officials employed
pressure tactics that left hard feelings here and abroad, and they came off as
arrogant in their dismissal of concerns about their revolutionary technology.
Charles concludes that Monsanto's "business ambitions, more than any other
single factor, brought forth the antibiotechnology backlash." That backlash is now very much with us. A major trade dispute over genetic
engineering is looming with Europe, where anti-biotech feelings are much
stronger, and there are signs of growing consumer discomfort in the United
States as well. Monsanto, which was itself purchased by a larger global player,
Pharmacia, is trying hard to present a friendlier face today, and the entire
biotechnology industry is spending millions to convince consumers that its
products are safe and its intentions good. While "Lords of the Harvest" describes the biotech opposition
without much enthusiasm, it does ultimately give credence to some of its
concerns. The book's final chapter tries to answer some of the questions that
the technology's opponents have raised about its implications for the
environment, public health and industry ownership, and in it Charles strikes a
welcome note of common sense. He finds nothing "to get agitated about"
when growers introduce genetically manipulated soybean plants to Iowa fields,
but he also sees no great loss to consumers if Monsanto and company were to yank
biotech crops from the market. Charles finds an idealistic impulse in biotech
efforts to make farmers more productive; he also throws cold water on the
industry's aggressive efforts to appear magnanimous to poor farmers around the
world. The technology, he writes, will be used almost exclusively in wealthier
countries for the foreseeable future -- because that's where farmers can afford
to buy it. The book could have used more editing -- Charles does, for example,
repeatedly reintroduce the same key scientists. Nevertheless, "Lords of the
Harvest" tells a little-understood story in a compelling and credible way.
Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food
By Daniel Charles
Perseus. 368 pp. $27.