Andy Rowell, November 1999
Article originally appeared in The Big Issue and can be accessed at Andy Rowell's Website
GM Food on Trial
Monsanto says it is now committed to open discussion of GM foods with all interested parties. But at the same time it is trying to stop campaigners taking the issues to court. Andy Rowell reports
Five women from the anti-GM campaign group, GenetiX Snowball, were in the Appeal Court this month, defending their right to a trial. The protesters were served with injunctions by GM giant, Monsanto, in July/August 1998 after they dug up some of the company's crops. In April, the High court ruled that the women had the right to have their defence heard and ordered a full civil court trial. Monsanto are appealing against that decision.
The ruling by three appeal judges is expected any day and will have severe repercussions for the British legal system. If it goes in Monsanto's favour, the activists could be served a life-time injunction, which if broken would result in imprisonment without trial. "This would be in breach of the European Human Rights Convention which guarantees a fair hearing or trial", says Daniel Bennett, of Leigh and Day solicitors, who represented three of the defendants.
The case started in July last year when the five women openly and peacefully dug up Monsanto's genetically modified crops at a test site in Oxfordshire. Each pulled up a symbolic number of plants. One of the protesters, Kathryn Tulip chose 64 for the number of experimental trials in the country. Another plucked just one plant as it was her first action.
The women were arrested and released without charge, but Monsanto later served temporary injunctions on them and issued a claim for "unquantified" damages, "conspiracy" and "unlawful interference with business and commercial interests". These damages could have run into thousands of pounds, but Monsanto dropped the claim in April this year at a summary hearing, instead arguing for a permanent injunction against the defendants, in order to avoid a trial. It also argued that anyone who had received a GenetiX Snowball handbook should be covered by the injunction, but this was rejected by the judge.
The legal action by Monsanto is seen as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation), a deliberate use of the law by companies and governments trying to silence their critics. "Monsanto's strategy is simply to silence protesters," says Tulip. SLAPPs are not necessary designed to go to court, but to intimidate protesters into inaction. "They send out the message that there is a price for speaking out politically", says Professor George Pring of the University of Colorado in Denver, who initially coined the phrase.
Currently, both biotech companies and the Government are resisting at all cost the possibility of genetic engineering being debated in a full trial. Earlier this year, the Crown pulled out of a case at Plymouth Crown Court against two GM campaigners who had damaged a GM test plot just yards from Britain's leading organic vegetable farm at Riverford in Devon. "The head of the Crown Prosecution Service looked at the expert evidence which was damning the whole regime of testing and propagating GM produce and took fright. They immediately dropped charges against the defendants" says Mike Schwarz, from Bindman and Partners, who represented the campaigners, labelled the Totnes Two.
"In both cases the Government and biotechnology corporations must be terrified that such direct actions can be proven to have effectively challenged their joint bullying" adds Jacklyn Sheedy, one of the Totnes Two. "Nor is it simply the issue of genetically engineered food at stake here - it is the fact that so many people are now daring to question the authority of government and industry - what could scare them more?"
But while Monsanto and the government aggressively want to stop their critics having their say in court, both are backing a new PR strategy aimed at winning over their more moderate opposition.
Last year Monsanto ran a high profile public relations campaign that backfired. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled it to be inaccurate and misleading. Monsanto had falsely claimed that GM crops had been tested for twenty years, when the first GM plant was only actually created in 1982.
So earlier this year, Monsanto tried a different tactic: it approached the Environment Council (a mainstream environmental charity that specialises in setting up dialogue forums) to facilitate round-table discussions between the company and its critics. It joins a growing list of companies with controversial environmental records who see dialogue as a way of overcoming green objections to their operations. Shell, BNFL and Rio Tinto have all recently set up dialogue forums with to counter opposition to their respective oil, nuclear and mining operations.
The majority of these "stakeholder initiatives", as they are known, are being facilitated by The Environment Council. Through them, Monsanto have already held face to face talks with the Soil Association -based in Bristol - the leading organisation promoting organic agriculture and a prominent GM critic. But now Monsanto is attempting its most ambitious ploy yet; facilitated by the Environment Council, the biotech company is funding the "National Stakeholder Dialogue on GMOs".
The Environment Council says that so far they have "the commitment" of Monsanto and "indications that other biotechnology companies would participate in a dialogue should it proceed. The UK Government has also signalled their strong support for such a dialogue to move forward and indicated their active involvement in such a process."
Until now, these "stakeholder initiatives" have only involved interested parties - never before has the debate been positioned as a "national dialogue," with Government backing. This new initiative, due to start next month, is now the cutting edge of green public relations.
But the move angers the GenetiX Snowball campaigners. "On one hand Monsanto wants to prevent a court trial which would explore the dangers of genetic engineering, yet on the other it says it wants to enter into dialogue with environmental groups about the issues" says Tulip. "It seems very much like a cynical PR exercise, an attempt to divide and conquer the opponents of genetic engineering".
The use of dialogue is indeed a typical divide and rule tactic. One PR guru has outlined a three step divide and conquer strategy on how corporations can defeat public interest activists who apparently fall into four distinct categories: "radicals", "opportunists", "idealists" and "realists". The goal is to isolate the radicals, "cultivate" the idealists and "educate" them into becoming realists, then co-opt the realists into agreeing with industry.
Dialogue is the most important PR tactic companies use to overcome objections to their operations. To be seen to be green, one needs to "be the model of openness" and "initiate dialogue" argues E Bruce Harrison, an American PR expert, who co-ordinated the chemical industry's counterattack against Rachel Carson's indictment of the chemical industry's approach of the environment, Silent Spring.
It is a message that Monsanto has taken on board. Last month, the company's head, Bob Shapiro, addressed the Greenpeace Business Conference in London. "We are now publicly committed to dialogue with people and groups who have a stake in this issue" said Shapiro, arguing that dialogue is a "search for answers, a search for constructive solutions that work for a wide range of people". Shapiro finished his speech by saying that: " We are committed to engage openly, honestly and non-defensively in the kind of discussion that can produce good answers for all of us".
But if Monsanto are not prepared to argue against its critics in court, is this dialogue initiative really a genuine attempt at funding sustainable solutions to the GM issue? "Very rarely do you ever have the impression that companies engaging in discussion are interested in changing their strategy", says Dr Sue Mayer, from GeneWatch UK, who has undertaken negotiations with the biotech industry. "Monsanto told me last year that despite its PR campaign about wanting discussion about biotechnology, it had invested too much money in its Round-up Ready soya beans for there ever to be a real debate. People were going to have to eat them whether they liked it or not."
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