By Jim Duncan

After last year's World Food Prize (WFP) ceremonies, a rumor quickly spread that former gubernatorial candidate Ed Fallon had attended the black tie event in blue jeans. At the time, the populist politician, who represents District 66 in the Iowa House of Representatives, was assembling a coalition of family farmers, activists and other grassroots Democrats who didn't identify with the pomp and circumstance of the WFP, which had been closed to the public a few years earlier. Fallon's friends don't exactly respect the work of some WFP laureates either, not of the ones who promote genetically modified organisms (GMOs). So the politician in blue jeans represented an Andy Jackson-style man of the real people. The only problem was that the rumor wasn't true.

"It didn't happen. I attended many events last year and some of them in blue jeans. But I didn't attend a World Food Prize event," Fallon said, emphasizing that disrespect for WFP is not part of his countenance.

"I have attended the World Food Prize in the past, and it's a great event. I am not lacking in respect for its intentions. Certain icons are not subject to criticism; Norman Borlaug is one," Fallon explained, adding that he wished the WFP organization raised a bigger tent.

"Complete respect is due, but it shouldn't blind us. My sincere objection is that there is no criticism of the rather consistent choices of laureates who are pro-biotech and pro-GMO. That [means] no room is given as to whether the propagation of GMO crops is right or wrong. About the sanity of destroying huge tracts of forest to accomplish their spread. It's my belief that sustainable agriculture has more long-term solutions for feeding the world than the latest GMO fad or biotech discovery. That possibility should be included in the discussion," he said.

A theory of markets says that whenever rumor runs faster than reality, there's a significant disconnection from the reality. In the case of the WFP, the disconnection is from its Iowa roots and traditions of sustainable agriculture. Larry Cleverley, a natural methods farmer from Mingo, explained.

"It seems to me if you call yourself the 'World Food Prize,' then your organization should be interested and active in all aspects of food production - including local, sustainable food production. Especially when one of the most active farmers' markets in the country is located two blocks from the soon-to-be-renovated headquarters. Maybe [WFP Foundation President] Ambassador Quinn could make some diplomatic overtures to some people in his neighborhood that actually grow food - people who actually get their hands dirty every day feeding people," he suggested.

Shock and awe

The WFP is an international award "for achievements that significantly increase the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world." It was created in 1986 by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Cresco native Norman Borlaug as a means of establishing role models. It has been sponsored since 1990 with private money from Iowa philanthropist John Ruan. Local media treat it with unconditional love or sponsorship, or both. So what could be objectionable about it?

Until recently, WFP critics were disregarded as agricultural anachronisms, alarmist environmentalists and fringe dissidents. These critics flowed into the mainstream last year when the WFP Foundation agreed to take possession of the old Des Moines Public Library. That building's price tag, much of it covered by taxpayers, had risen from $14 million (when Vision Iowa persuaded Polk County to contribute to it) to $29 million, which includes an endowment to maintain the building. WFP Foundation President Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, to whom Cleverley alluded, aggravated critics by declaring the building needed to "awe" people. Suddenly, the WFP seemed like an elitist indulgence at the expense of the common man.

"The entire YMCA property across the street, that could hold four or five library buildings, could have been bought for $15 million. So they could have bought two YMCAs for the price of paint chippers, stencils and labor to repair a building that was supposedly maintained 'flawlessly' by the city of Des Moines. ... More appropriately for the WFP, they could have bought 100,000 acres of farmland and then put up an $8 million dollar pole barn," Polk County taxpayer John Anderson complains.

The beans on Brazil

Since 1996, about one in four prizes has gone to genetic engineering or biotech breakthroughs: hybrid and new rice varieties in 2004; a new "protein corn" in 2000; and a "miracle rice" in 1996. More often, the award has honored older sciences that combat pestilence, soil erosion, livestock parasites and even bureaucratic red tape. But critics see a trend toward biotech and this year's laureates further galvanized them - because these winners represent one of the more polarizing debates in the history of man's relationship to this planet. Edson Lobato and His Excellency Alysson Paolinelli, both of Brazil, and Dr. A. Colin McClung of the United States won for bringing the "Green Revolution" to Brazil's interior. President Ambassador Quinn noted at the awards' announcement that their collective efforts over 50 years "unlocked the Brazilian Cerrado's tremendous potential for food production."

The Cerrado is a unique ecosystem and designated environmental "hot spot" - because of the richness of its endemic flora and fauna. Its many species have adapted to what amounts to the world's only savanna/dry forest subject to monsoons. For environmentalists, the region's Green Revolution epitomizes the unintended consequences of the man vs. nature conundrum. To move people from Brazil's overcrowded coastal regions, much of the Cerrado was altered by massive government intervention. Forests were cleared to graze cattle and highways built to transport them. Cleared forests found industrial purposes - today more than 80 percent of the charcoal in Brazil's steel industry comes from native Cerrado trees - further stressing the ecology.

But Cerrado soil didn't support other forms of agriculture until scientists, led by Dr. McClung, discovered that its aluminum-based acidity could be countered with lime, plus the intensive use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, along with newly designed crop strains. Environmentalists now fear that the region's incredibly pure water will become toxic from the heavy chemical application. They lament that the rich diversity is being sacrificed to just cotton and soybeans.

"When they opened the Cerrado, farmers from the south moved there because the land was cheaper. No matter how cheap, farmers can't survive if their product sells for less than it costs to produce. So, most ended up working for agribusinesses. The largest soybean farmer in the world is also the most powerful politician - Gov. Blairo Maggi of Matto Grosso [state]," points out former Brazil Peace Corps worker Kevin Conlan, who is now involved with an international farm exchange program active in Brazil.

Maggi's corporation (Amaggi) made the news last year after 84 slaves were discovered on soybean farms. Since Brazil's political interests coincide with that of agribusiness, environmentalists complain that only 1 percent of the Cerrado is protected, one-sixth of what is protected in even the Amazon. This March, Brazil's environmental agency levied a fine of $460,000 on Swiss corporation Syngenta for illegally planting GMO soy within the protected Iguasu Falls National Park.

"Not that anything is ever really protected. 'Protection' is usually a convenient designation for someone in power to exploit," Conlan maintains, noting that 64 of Maggi's government officials - including his Environment Secretary - had been charged with allowing the illegal extraction of protected timber.

Critics say the timing of this year's WFP ties the Green Revolution to the corruption in Brazil. That if role models are an end to which the WFP strives, then McClung should have been given this award back in 1986, when the untapped potential of his discovery was still subject to the power of positive imaginations. Now it comes too late and seems to be rewarding exploitation run amok.

To that charge, World Food Prize Foundation President Ambassador Kenneth M. Quinn said, "The World Food Prize was only established in 1986. It is given for achievements with "demonstrated impact" in increasing the quality, quantity and availability of food.

"The 2006 World Food Prize Laureates - Dr. A. Colin McClung, Alysson Paolinelli and Edson Lobato - are being honored for the roles they played in transforming a huge area of land (equal in size to the entire American middle west) that was producing little to no food into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The full impact of their work was not likely evident in 1986.

"The three Laureates were chosen in 2006 by a selection committee headed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, the Father of the Green Revolution and the man who has 'saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived.' A forest ranger as a young man, Dr. Borlaug retains a deep commitment to the environment. It is said that his approach to agriculture has preserved more than one billion hectares of natural habitat. Dr Borlaug calls the development of the Cerrado 'one of the great achievements of agricultural science in the 20th century.' "The World Food Prize International Symposium is a forum for all ideas and concerns. We have included several sessions on Brazilian agriculture and the Cerrado in our forthcoming conference."

The color of money

While environmentalists have many problems with the opening of Brazil's interior, more Iowans are upset with the Green Revolution as an economic role model. Ominous issues are surfacing in Brazil's current, hotly contested political election: Low food prices will be a key factor if scandal-plagued President Lula stays in power; food exports from the Cerrado have helped pay off Brazil's international loans ahead of schedule, keeping inflation in check; Brazil's government claims that more than 386,000 square miles of the Cerrado still remain suitable for mechanized agriculture. (That's more land than the U.S. acreage devoted to corn, soybeans, wheat, and feed grains combined.) The system greases too many wheels to be changed, the argument goes. So, how low can commodity prices go?

Stephanie Weisenbach of Genetic Engineering Action Network (GEAN) explaines why international agribusiness needs watchdogs more than cheerleaders in tuxedos.

"Biotechnology is often the broad term that is used in Iowa. However, genetic engineering and patenting seeds through what's called 'biopiracy' in other countries is really at the drive for the 'Green Revolution' that is promoted through the World Food Prize.

"Bioengineers use the genetic material of ancient varieties, insert foreign genes and cross species that would never cross in nature or through conventional breeding. Then seeds are patented and sold to farmers that are forced to pay technology fees to multinational corporations and robbed of the right to save their seeds [for replanting the next year]. Many communities who could once feed themselves are forced into monocultures, and the hunger problems become more long-term," Weisenbach said, adding that biotech opponents are particularly upset that GMO seed makers confront farmers with aggressive lawsuits for alleged patent infringement. Total recorded judgments, granted just to Monsanto, are more than $15 million.

Despite the critics, the Rockefeller Foundation has long backed the Green Revolution with its considerable prestige and assets. This year the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation jumped on board, too. Who would want to clot such well-endowed bleeding hearts? Weisenbach pointed out that Zimbabwe turned down U.S. food aid because it included GMO grains. In fact, Angola, Zambia and Mozambique all did, too, even though they were threatened with famine at the time. Bt critics say it suits the industry's propaganda to write those decisions off condescendingly, with explanations like, "They don't call it the Dark Continent for nothing."

Such arrogance disconnects from a reality that should have been learned long ago in Iowa, where 70 years of short-sighted policies have unintentionally altered the profession of farming - from one of self sufficiency to one of abject dependency. LaVon Griffieon, a farming activist and co-founder of 1,000 Friends of Iowa, says Iowa farmers can no longer afford to remain passive about industrialization of agriculture and bad farm policy.

"As a farmer, it's not my job to feed the world. As a global citizen, it is my job to make sure the world can feed itself," she said. "Feeding the world is not about production. It is a political problem that deals with access, transportation and distribution.

"Has industrialized agriculture, The 'Green Revolution', actually fed more people? It moves small indigenous farmers off the land and makes way for larger equipment and embraces industrial ag practices. When farmers can't make a living, then larger farms form while small implement, seed and feed dealers disappear, Main Street dries up and the kids move away. This seems to be a description of present-day rural Iowa, which has lost more than 58 percent of the 215,000 farms we had in 1940."

The once and future sage

The ultimate role model of modern agriculture is Iowa's hybrid seed pioneer Henry Wallace. Like this year's laureates, Wallace was a scientific genius with a magician's ability to multiply harvests. He was also a powerful politician whose short-term solutions did irreparable long-term damage to the culture of farming. And, like Dwight Eisenhower warning about the military-industrial complex, Wallace in his old age discerned the larger picture like a prophetic sage.

"For thousands of years, the Hopi have lived with corn, with a depth of feeling no white man can understand. The white man, on the contrary, rushes with maximum speed to change his machinery, his surroundings, his way of life, his attitudes, thereby creating obsolescence, waste and frustrations," Wallace wrote in 1956.

Activists like Griffieon are hoping Norman Borlaug has a similar epiphany.

"It isn't good form to diss elderly gentlemen who have won the Nobel Peace Prize - but Borlaug seems to be the poster boy for biotechnology. He presents a wise, safe and wholesome image for a technology that could use some public scrutiny," she said. "All biotech is not bad - but most of us don't know the difference between GE, GMO, transgenic or pharma-crops. Few decisions-makers in Iowa are smart enough to define the technology, wise enough to question the long-range economic, environmental or health ramifications of adopting it, or ballsy enough to say it out loud if they do wonder about it."

Griffieon blames the loss of expertise on policies that depopulated rural Iowa.

"We used to have a Legislature full of farmers. And we need to get more young people back on the land in a sustainable way - to breed more decision-makers capable of making the right decisions," she said, stressing urgency for such matters. "The environmental footprint we are preparing to make with ethanol is catastrophic. We are going to experience nitrogen being poured on corn acres, with no residue left for nourishment or protection of soils; depleted soils and erosion creating more livestock confinements to feed the by-products to; more livestock nutrients for our groundwater; and more stench for our air.

"The World Food Prize could be the voice of the history of agriculture, but you also have to look at what they see as the future of agriculture. We're suffering from bio-euphoria in Iowa. It's frightening, some of these technologies that we're being encouraged to embrace, when we don't know where they're taking us, economically, environmentally or health-wise," Griffieon warned. CV

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