Prince Charles' Crusade

Prince Charles is now being hailed by foes of the genetic-industrial complex as their doughty champion. Near the end of February the Prince was vainly ordered by Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair to shut down his royal website (www.princeofwales.gov.uk), which has been featuring vigorous denunciations by the heir apparent of what in Britain is termed GM, that is, genetically modified crops. (In the U.S., the equivalent term is GE, genetically engineered crops.)

As befits a long-term organic farmer, the Prince links genetically modified crops to the blight of an agriculture dependent on chemicals, raising questions of poor land management and baneful ecological practices which leave "sterile fields offering little or no food or shelter to wild life." Genetic material, the Prince thunders in one posting, "does not stay where it is put. Pollen is spread by the wind and by insects to organic crops growing nearby. This cannot be right."

The Prince continues, "I wonder about the claims that some GM crops are essential to feed the world's populations. Is it really true? Isn't the problem sometimes lack of money rather than lack of food? And how will the companies who own this technology make a sufficient profit from selling their products to the world's poorest people? Wouldn't it be better to concentrate instead on the sustainable techniques which can double or treble the yields from traditional farming systems?"

Prince Charles concludes by zeroing in on one of the paramount political issues, demanding "effective and comprehensive schemes to ensure that those consumers like me who do not want to eat GM foods can avoid them."

It might seem an irony to some that the British heir apparent should be adopting a principled, enlightened position, in marked contrast to the social democrats and their leader, Blair. But their roles are entirely in character. Prince Charles has long been conspicuous for sensible and sometimes radical ecological positions--on the Amazon rainforest, on appropriate land use and resource management and on organic agriculture. He's no Johnny-Come-Lately to the issues, having gone into organic farming in the early 1980s.

On the other hand, Tony Blair's tradition of social democracy has always had a frenzied enthusiasm for supposed technological progress. It was Harold Wilson, leader of the Labor Party in the 1960s, who used to hymn "the white heat of technology." The tradition of rambling and rural hiking that used to mark British radicals has long since gone.

Far dearer to Blair's heart are the big corporations--most notably Monsanto--which are now pushing their patents for genetically modified crops into Europe. The reason why Blair demanded that Prince Charles shut down his website (on the grounds that it constituted an unwarranted piece of political meddling by the Prince) is that the whole GM issue is politically hot in the UK at the moment, as it is throughout Europe.

The stakes are high for Monsanto's GM products. For example, the Consumers' Union estimates that Monsanto's bovine growth hormone, rBGH, could earn the company $500 million a year in the United States and another $1 billion a year internationally. The haul from Monsanto's Round Up Ready soybeans, potatoes, and corn and its terminator seeds could be substantially--perhaps tens of billions--more.

Monsanto has always been able to count on the aid of the U.S. government to promote its products. With the unceasing encouragement of the Dept. of Agriculture, American farmers have planted more than 50 million acres in Monsanto's genetically-engineered crops in just the past four years. The Food and Drug Administration has also played along, acceding to the company's demand that genetically-engineered crops not be labeled as such.

When faced with the almost certain prospect that the European Union would ban the import of Monsanto genetically-engineered corn in 1998, the company unleashed an unprecedented lobbying effort, flying a group of critical journalists to the U.S., where they visited Monsanto's corporate headquarters and its labs. Then the scribes were taken to Washington, where they were given the tour of the White House, including a rare visit to the Oval Office. Top Clinton aides rallied to the company's defense, including U.S. Trade Rep. Charlene Barshevsky, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, and Commerce Secretary Bill Daley. All lobbied their European counterparts on behalf of the company. Even Bill Clinton and Al Gore got in on the act, engaging in some last minute arm-twisting of the Irish and French prime ministers. Both the French and Irish caved in to the pressure by July 1998. This spring Monsanto's genetically-engineered corn will be planted in Europe for the first time.

Perhaps no American company has as zealously exploited the so-called revolving door as Monsanto, which has seized on ex-Clinton aides and federal bureaucrats to advance its interest in Washington.

Take the case of Michael Taylor. After graduating from law school at the University of Virginia in 1976, Taylor went to work at the Food and Drug Administration, eventually rising to the position of executive assistant to the FDA's administrator. Then Taylor left the federal government for a post in the high-powered law firm of King and Spaulding. Taylor was the firm's specialist in food and drug matters pending before the FDA. During his tenure at King and Spaulding Taylor's clients included Coca-Cola, Carnation, the Food Biotechnology Council, and Monsanto. One of Taylor's duties was to represent Monsanto's efforts to get its bovine growth hormone approved by the FDA. Taylor left King and Spaulding in 1991 to rejoin the FDA, this time as Deputy Commissioner for Policy. In that position Taylor was responsible for writing guidelines on the use and marketing of the controversial hormone that were favorable to the company. Specifically, Taylor drafted guidelines that exempted milk producers from labeling dairy products from cows that had been treated with rBGH. Now Taylor has returned to Monsanto to work on what the company calls "long range planning."

One of Taylor's former associates at the FDA, Dr. Nick Weber, recently leaked confidential notes from the European Commission on whether the Commission was going to approve the use of the company's bovine growth hormone. Weber passed on the notes to his boss at the FDA, Dr. Margaret Mitchell. Before joining the FDA, Mitchell had served as director of the Monsanto lab working on the hormone. The notes helped Monsanto prepare its arguments in advance of the September meeting. Monsanto's application was approved on a tie vote when the U.S. chair of the committee determined "by the chairman's privilege" that a tie vote meant approval.

The company may have secured its biggest coup in 1997, when it brought onto its board Mickey Kantor, the former Secretary of Commerce and one of Bill Clinton's closest advisors. It was Kantor who opened the doors to the White House and got the administration to threaten the European Union on the matter of Monsanto's genetically-engineered grain.

Kantor's new law firm, Mayer, Brown & Platt, watches out for the company's interests in matters of international trade, food safety, and product labeling. Prior to Kantor's arrival at the firm in 1997, one of Mayer, Brown & Platt's top lobbyists was William Daley. Daley was tapped by Bill Clinton to fill Kantor's spot in the cabinet as Secretary of Commerce. In that capacity, he has led the charge for Monsanto on several continents.

Back in Britain, the Labor government, secure on top of its vast majority, is nonetheless embarrassed by blunders on the GM issue. It has emerged that Lord Sainsbury, Labor's science minister who is deeply involved in GM decision-making, had financial stakes in GM companies as well as his own familial connection ($36 million in dividends) to the vast Sainsbury retail empire, which markets genetically modified tomatoes.

Prince Charles commands a considerable measure of public support from Britons deeply suspicious of scientific manipulation of their admittedly dreadful food. The Sixties live on, in the most surprising locations. A good measure of the Prince Charles world view--holism, organic food, communitarianism--mirrors exactly that of an American hippie coming to maturity in the late 1960s. After all, organic agriculture in America owes much to the hippies, as does Humboldt Gold, an example of biological manipulation of the most uplifting sort.