Geopolitics of Organic Food: Russia, China and France Ban GMOs
The article would also state
that products in Russia containing more than 0.9% genetically modified
ingredients must be labeled, as opposed to US laws where no labeling is
required for genetically modified products despite steadily growing
public opposition to the practice.
Russia’s stance against GMO is mirrored elsewhere, including in France where just recently Monsanto’s GM corn was banned and in China where the importing of US GM corn has been outlawed.
The backlash against GMO has widespread appeal due to well-placed
health and environmental concerns among increasingly informed
populations. But the drive to push back against GMO in nations like
Russia and China also has a geopolitical dimension.
An Army Marches on Its Stomach
The biotechnology from which
genetically modified organisms are derived, is currently monopolized by a
handful of very powerful multinational corporations centered in the
West. This monopoly forms (in part) the foundation of Western hegemonic
power. As seen in Afghanistan, big-ag monopolies like Monsanto played a
pivotal role in the attempted corporate colonization of the South Asian nation.
Corporate interests and technology, coupled with Western aid
organizations, backed by NATO’s military force, helped transform
Afghanistan’s agricultural landscape through the systematic poisoning of
traditional crops and their replacement with genetically modified
soybeans (a crop previously alien to Afghan agriculture and cuisine).
The roots Monsanto sank into Afghanistan will be deep and lasting.
Farmers dependent on patented genetically modified soybeans will be
dependent on Monsanto and other Western biotech/big-ag giants
indefinitely, and in turn, so will the people who depend on those
farmers for daily sustenance. The very sovereignty of Afghanistan as an
independent nation has been undermined at the most basic and fundamental
level, its food security which now resides in the hands of foreigners.It is clear then that nations like Russia, China, and others are not only responding to growing concern from among their populations regarding the safety and environmental impact of GMO products, but the threat this monopolized technology poses toward each respective nation’s food supply and consequently, their sovereignty.
Recent sanctions aimed at Russia
in the West’s bid to cement regime change in neighboring Ukraine
illustrates perfectly just how potentially damaging absolute dependence
on Western big-ag corporations can be. Had Russian agriculture been more
dependent on Western GMOs, and had the West’s sanctions been across a
wider or full spectrum as they are against nations like Iran, the
potential survival of Russia’s population could have been put at risk
and foreign-backed political instability able to threaten Moscow easily
achieved.
Each Nation a Castle
Sanctions against Iran have
forced the nation to become self-sufficient across a wide spectrum of
socioeconomic activity including food production, technological research
and development, and weapons development. While the sanctions the West
aims at Iran are designed to act as a modern form of siege warfare
practiced at a national level, weakening the nation and ultimately
contributing to its collapse, they have instead made Iran more
resilient.
Iran has become a proverbial “castle,” weathering the siege by
breaking it in some places, and undermining it with self-sufficient
economic activity within its borders in other places. Nations like
Russia and China, directly confronted by a West openly attempting to
encircle both with specified alliances and strategies (NATO and the
“pivot toward Asia” respectively), must likewise ensure independence and
self-sufficiency across a wide range of socioeconomic activity, with
fundamental necessities like food security taking priority.Organic farming augmented by modern technology, as suggested by Prime Minister Medvedev has the power to ensure food security for Russia now and well into the future. With growing global demand for healthier, GMO-free food, a national policy leaning toward organic could eventually become an economic advantage beyond Russia’s borders. Other nations, communities, and indeed individuals around the world should look at this basic first step, securing one’s food supply, and understand how it is the key to national, local, and individual sovereignty, as well as a means toward enhancing economic prospects.
The West’s mega agricultural
monopolies seek to infiltrate and overrun national food supplies
worldwide, while it aims crippling sanctions at nations it seeks to
influence or control geopolitically. A nation made dependent on the
West’s mega agricultural monopolies, if ever targeted by sanctions or
other means to undermine and overthrow its existing political order,
will be particularly vulnerable. Thus, going organic is not just a means
to keep a nation’s population healthy and therefore more productive,
but also a fundamental means to protect national sovereignty.
The shortsighted benefits in
terms of payoffs from mega agricultural monopolies governments around
the world may be tempted by today, might be the leverage used by the
West tomorrow to uproot them when their utility is perceived by the West
to be exhausted, and new leadership is desired. For nations that
believe in the merits of GMO, their people should demand that such
technology be developed, implemented, regulated, and monitored
indigenously, preempting the multitude of dangers the foreign domination
of their food supply poses.
Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
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