Voice-over (Matthew Gianni) : Every day, four and a half billion people eat food made from wheat. It’s the biggest single source of food in the world. Nearly one hundred billion US dollars worth of wheat is grown, bought and sold every year. The amount of land given over to wheat production far outstrips other major crops such as rice and corn. The US government’s own figures show that global wheat production is increasing by ten million tons per year.
Todd Leake : “The wheat I grow comes from wheat that was grown by people thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago and I don’t feel I have a right to violate that for the people who are going to come after me.”
VO : It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of wheat to so many people in so many different cultures. China – traditionally considered to be a rice-eating society – actually tops the global league tables of both wheat poduction and consumption.
Terry Boehm : “The thing I like the best is harvest time and that harvest, that wheat coming in, that quality product that I know is going to be utilised to feed people. This is what farming is about because certainly there are better and easier ways to make a living.”
VO : Wheat is an essential ingredient in hundreds of foodstuffs. Bread. Pasta. Cous-cous. Noodles. Cakes. Cookies. Pizza. Even beer. But for most people wheat simply means one thing – their daily bread. From the sliced white loaf to the bagel, from the chapati to the baguette – bread is one of life’s essentials.
Titles – Slice of Life (10”)
Norman Olley, Craftsman baker, UK : “Certainly bread through the ages has been the most staple part of our diet, in many countries, well in the vast majority, it is still the staple diet, and it is a very dangerous product to mess about with. Nations have fallen for the bad quality of the bread in the past and they have been built on the strength of it.”
VO : Wheat is the world’s oldest crop. Originally a wild grass from the Middle East, farmers have been cultivating wheat for more than twelve thousand years. It was the ancient Egyptians who discovered that wheat flour makes the best bread. By the twentieth century industrial-scale bread baking was the norm in western countries – but the recipe remained virtually unchanged. Today’s modern wheat varieties like the hard reds and whites grown in North America are so productive that a family of four could live for ten years off the bread harvested from one single acre. The ultimate super-crop, wheat is so versatile it can grow in the blistering Australian sun or the snows of the Canadian prairies. The expertise needed to grow today’s modern wheat varieties is the product of thousands of years of experience, breeding and science.
Arnold Taylor, President, Saskatchewan Organic Directorate :
“Wheat is world wide a very.. well it’s your daily bread, this is your crop that the whole world has been living on, compared to say maybe rice in some parts of the world, but bread in this part of the world and Europe especially, is a very important crop. We’ve been growing wheat for centuries, since the time of the Pyramids, without Round-Up, without chemicals and without commercial fertilisers until the last 40-50 years most of this stuff came into vogue and I think that we were probably growing just a good a yield and probably just a good a quality in all those years – maybe a little more labour intensive. I don’t think it is necessary at all.”
VO : Between them, Canada and the United States grow nearly one-fifth of the world’s wheat – second only to China. Half of the US and three-quarters of the Canadian wheat harvest is shipped abroad. Europe, Japan and South East Asia are the main export markets. If – for whatever reason – these countries stopped importing North American wheat, prices would plummet and already hard-pressed farmers would be squeezed even further.
Professor Richard Gray, Agricultural-Economist, University of
Saskatchewan : “Basically there will be a real problem in segregating GM wheat from non-GM wheat, so there will be many countries that will shy away from all Canadian spring wheat if we introduce GM wheat into the country and grow it commercially.”
VO : In recent decades European consumers have demanded a return to better-made bread. They’re willing to pay for top quality products made with the best ingredients. The craftsman baker – once threatened by mass-production and industrialisation – is making a comeback.
Norman Olley, Campaigning Baker, UK : “We use the best quality flour, if it has to come all the way from Canada, that’s by the way, and we don’t then need to put in improvers, emulsifiers, anti-fungicides or anything else. Just make it as a simple product. If I want to make a traditional loaf like this , I do need a traditional flour or wheats from Canada.”
John White, Federation of Bakers, UK : “We take a very pragmatic view at the moment, and the British consumer does not want a GM loaf, and is not prepared to accept GM ingredients therefore we won’t have GM ingredients.”
VO : So who would put at risk the wheat that billions depend on for their daily food? Who would jeopardise the livelihoods of thousands of North American wheat farmers? Who puts money before food and environmental safety? And who, against all the evidence to the contrary, is trying to convince farmers there’s a market for genetically engineered wheat? Monsanto. That’s who.
Marc Loiselle, Organic farmer, Saskatchewan : “I feel that it is absolutely, incredibly atrocious to see what is happening with companies like Monsanto. There is so many aspects of what is happening that point to the fact that they are just doing this without any proper regard and, as far as corporate stewardship would be concerned, it is obviously not on the books for a company like Monsanto. They don’t have any proper regard for their fellow man.”
VO : Genetically engineered foods could pose problems for human health. Experts are concerned about the possibility of antibiotic resistance, the creation of toxins and nutritional changes. In the case of GE wheat, health risks could potentially be far greater because of the vast number of people who eat it in their daily diet.
Olwen Hoffman, Organic farmer, Saskatchewan: “I guess the question is still out, how good or how bad are they to our environment and to ourselves ingesting it, and I would hate to think that 20-30 years down the line we find out what it may be doing to the insects in our soil and the quality of the plant life, and the quality of the food that we are eating. We would not be able to turn back then, it’s there”
Todd Leake, Farmer, North dakota : “It’s basically putting the farmers between a rock and a hard place. We’ve got our export customers who do not want Round-Up Ready wheat and we have these large corporate entities that are doing all this genetic modification who want to force it down upon us, and we are the ones that will pay the price.”
VO : These huge greenhouse complexes in Saint Louis, Missouri, contain some of the most closely-guarded secrets in the biotech industry. Monsanto has spent more than a decade and tens of millions of dollars developing their Roundup Ready variety of genetically engineered wheat. The company is so proud of Roundup Ready wheat that they won’t disclose the location of field trials. So secretive that they refused to be interviewed about it for this film. Perhaps not so surprising, given the dubious track-record of other GE crops like soybeans, corn and canola.
Arnold Taylor : “Once you bring in this wheat, with a genetic modification, a genetically engineered wheat, it is there forever. There is no calling it back if there is something wrong with it, if there is a problem with it; it’s there forever and there is no question that you can keep it segregated from your regular varieties because it can’t be done. So the question is , not whether or not you want to grow this particular variety, it is whether or not you want to be stuck with this forever.”
VO : It might not be long before that genie is out of the bottle. Monsanto has recently filed for regulatory approval for Roundup Ready wheat in both the US and Canada. If that approval is granted, genetically engineered wheat could be growing commercially in North America in just two or three years.
Professor Richard Gray : “There is a regular market in countries like the EU for the high quality wheat and it is very likely we will lose those markets for organic wheat, for example, if in fact we introduce GM wheat into this country.”
VO : European consumers have already made their feelings felt about genetically engineered food. Millers, supermarkets and food manufacturers recognise this and maintain a strict ban on any GM ingredients. But don’t just take our word for it. Research from the Canadian Wheat Board shows that two-thirds of their customers reject genetically engineered wheat. For some specific varieties the figure rises to eighty per cent. Even the Canadian and US markets themselves – traditionally in favour of GE food – won’t buy it. Flour millers and food producers all over the world are queueing up to say no to GE wheat. Their message to Canadian and US farmers is quite clear: if you grow Roundup Ready wheat, we’ll go elsewhere for our supplies. (30”)
Caption roller:
“It is critical…customers perceive the bakery’s bread as being GM-free” - Warburton’s (UK)
“Personally, I don’t think Roundup Ready offers a lot to consumers.” - Alex Waugh, National Association of British & Irish Millers.
“GMO wheat will for sure be a market destructor” - Andre & Cie (Belgium)
“If you do grow genetically modified wheat, we will not be able to buy any of your wheat – neither the GM nor the conventional.” - Rank Hovis McDougall (UK)
“Flour millers strongly doubt that…GM wheat or even coventional wheat that may contain GM wheat will be acceptable to the Japanese market.” - Japan Flour Millers Associaton
“The European milling industry will simply not buy one more kilo of US wheat at all if Roundup Ready wheat is commercialised.” - Grandi Molini (Italy)
“We will not do anything to erode consumer confidence” - General Mills (UK)
“Give us Roundup Ready bread? I don’t think so.” - US Wheat Associates
VO : You’ve got to hand it to Monsanto – even in the face of such worldwide opposition they’re still trying to persuade farmers that Roundup Ready wheat is the way forward. The company’s PR machine spins the line that they won’t push GE wheat until they’re sure the markets want it. But they don’t sound too convincing.
Graphic caption:
“We acknowledge that trade is a vital component of North American agriculture.” - Sally Metz, Monsanto Director of Wheat Technology
“Wheat is a highly scrutinised crop because much of it ends up on grocery shelves in the form of bread products…we’re never going to sell a seed of biotech grain until we know we have the demand.” - Michael Doane, Monsanto Industry Affairs Manager.
VO : For organic farmers in North America, the introduction of Roundup Ready wheat would spell disaster. They’re already reeling from contamination by other GE crops – notably canola, soya and corn. The tiniest trace of Roundup Ready wheat would be enough to make an organic miller or baker look for alternative supplies.
Keith Pavo, Organic farmer, Saskatchewan : “Canada is seen as a very pristine supplier of products to the organic market. Definitely one of the top suppliers in the world, especially for bread wheats and for us to jeopardise that relationship for something that is at this time unregulated seems to be a bit of a travesty in my eyes. Basically the organic market is one of trust and reputation and the buyers could very simply move on to somebody else if they even suspect that potentially there might be a problem down the road.”
VO : That’s bad news for organic farmers in Canada who’re worried about the effects of GE crops. Many are already facing major financial problems because of contamination from GE canola. The Saskatchewan Organic Directorate is suing Monsanto – and fellow biotech giants Aventis – for the loss of fourteen million dollars worth of organic canola. The lawsuit also claims that organic wheat exports – valued at one hundred and seventy million dollars - will be wiped out if Roundup Ready gets the go ahead.
Marc Loiselle : “It doesn’t take a whole lot of contamination from a neighbouring farm to happen for the wheat that I will be growing to be contaminated and that is certainly something that is being demonstrated by canola and is obviously the threat from the GE wheat trial plots that have been going across western Canada. There is a possiblity that some low grade contamination is already happening out there.”
VO : And it’s not just organic farmers who will lose out if Roundup Ready wheat is grown commercially. Conventional wheat farmers are also worried.
Terry Boehm, Vice-President, National Farmers’ Union, Canada : “Something like seeds are really are the commons, they’ve been part of an exchange amongst farmers for a number of millenia. The corporate world, their business strategy, they’re appropriating that entire history of wheat, and they’re patenting it, and they’re taking possession if that. And this is the commons, this is something that should be freely exchanged amongst farmers, amongst researchers.”
Dan Dutton, Farmer, Montana : “Monsanto primarily wants to introduce transgenic, GMO’s into Montana. They first talked about doing it in 2003 and now 2005, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. If we lose our export markets, and we know that Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Egypt and the EU have told us they don’t want GM crops especially GM wheat, and that will further depress prices.”
Senator April Fairfield, Democrat, North Dakota : “The economic situation in North Dakota right now is bleak without genetically modified wheat. If it’s introduced prematurely, if it’s introduced without certain safeguards in place it will be a crushing blow to our economy.”
VO : Of course, loss of export markets is only one problem farmers will have to face if genetically engineered wheat gets the go-ahead. Like other Monsanto crops, Roundup Ready wheat will bring a whole host of other problems with it. Already farmers throughout North America are embroiled in lawsuits with Monsanto over GE soybeans, corn and canola. Experts predict the consequences of GM wheat will be even worse.
Sarah Vogel, Lawyer & former North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner : “I do not believe that our handling system and storage system will be capable of keeping GM wheat and non-GM wheat separate. It can’t be done, there will be a problem, and who pays if farmers lose their export markets just because of mixtures that occurred down the stream of commerce. If the farmers do their best they could still lose their export markets, they could still have their wheat rejected.”
VO : North American farmers are used to fighting their own battles – against drought, disease, poverty and bureaucracy. Now they’re gearing up for what could be the biggest fight of all. It’s not just about a new genetically engineered crop. It’s not just about farmers being able to sow, harvest and sell their own wheat without interference. It’s about the right of all of us to eat good quality, uncontaminated food without worrying what might be in it. It’s about the bread of life.
Todd Leake : “The wheat I grow comes from wheat that was grown by people thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago and I don’t feel I have a right to violate that for the people who are going to come after me.”
VO : It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of wheat to so many people in so many different cultures. China – traditionally considered to be a rice-eating society – actually tops the global league tables of both wheat poduction and consumption.
Terry Boehm : “The thing I like the best is harvest time and that harvest, that wheat coming in, that quality product that I know is going to be utilised to feed people. This is what farming is about because certainly there are better and easier ways to make a living.”
VO : Wheat is an essential ingredient in hundreds of foodstuffs. Bread. Pasta. Cous-cous. Noodles. Cakes. Cookies. Pizza. Even beer. But for most people wheat simply means one thing – their daily bread. From the sliced white loaf to the bagel, from the chapati to the baguette – bread is one of life’s essentials.
Titles – Slice of Life (10”)
Norman Olley, Craftsman baker, UK : “Certainly bread through the ages has been the most staple part of our diet, in many countries, well in the vast majority, it is still the staple diet, and it is a very dangerous product to mess about with. Nations have fallen for the bad quality of the bread in the past and they have been built on the strength of it.”
VO : Wheat is the world’s oldest crop. Originally a wild grass from the Middle East, farmers have been cultivating wheat for more than twelve thousand years. It was the ancient Egyptians who discovered that wheat flour makes the best bread. By the twentieth century industrial-scale bread baking was the norm in western countries – but the recipe remained virtually unchanged. Today’s modern wheat varieties like the hard reds and whites grown in North America are so productive that a family of four could live for ten years off the bread harvested from one single acre. The ultimate super-crop, wheat is so versatile it can grow in the blistering Australian sun or the snows of the Canadian prairies. The expertise needed to grow today’s modern wheat varieties is the product of thousands of years of experience, breeding and science.
Arnold Taylor, President, Saskatchewan Organic Directorate :
“Wheat is world wide a very.. well it’s your daily bread, this is your crop that the whole world has been living on, compared to say maybe rice in some parts of the world, but bread in this part of the world and Europe especially, is a very important crop. We’ve been growing wheat for centuries, since the time of the Pyramids, without Round-Up, without chemicals and without commercial fertilisers until the last 40-50 years most of this stuff came into vogue and I think that we were probably growing just a good a yield and probably just a good a quality in all those years – maybe a little more labour intensive. I don’t think it is necessary at all.”
VO : Between them, Canada and the United States grow nearly one-fifth of the world’s wheat – second only to China. Half of the US and three-quarters of the Canadian wheat harvest is shipped abroad. Europe, Japan and South East Asia are the main export markets. If – for whatever reason – these countries stopped importing North American wheat, prices would plummet and already hard-pressed farmers would be squeezed even further.
Professor Richard Gray, Agricultural-Economist, University of
Saskatchewan : “Basically there will be a real problem in segregating GM wheat from non-GM wheat, so there will be many countries that will shy away from all Canadian spring wheat if we introduce GM wheat into the country and grow it commercially.”
VO : In recent decades European consumers have demanded a return to better-made bread. They’re willing to pay for top quality products made with the best ingredients. The craftsman baker – once threatened by mass-production and industrialisation – is making a comeback.
Norman Olley, Campaigning Baker, UK : “We use the best quality flour, if it has to come all the way from Canada, that’s by the way, and we don’t then need to put in improvers, emulsifiers, anti-fungicides or anything else. Just make it as a simple product. If I want to make a traditional loaf like this , I do need a traditional flour or wheats from Canada.”
John White, Federation of Bakers, UK : “We take a very pragmatic view at the moment, and the British consumer does not want a GM loaf, and is not prepared to accept GM ingredients therefore we won’t have GM ingredients.”
VO : So who would put at risk the wheat that billions depend on for their daily food? Who would jeopardise the livelihoods of thousands of North American wheat farmers? Who puts money before food and environmental safety? And who, against all the evidence to the contrary, is trying to convince farmers there’s a market for genetically engineered wheat? Monsanto. That’s who.
Marc Loiselle, Organic farmer, Saskatchewan : “I feel that it is absolutely, incredibly atrocious to see what is happening with companies like Monsanto. There is so many aspects of what is happening that point to the fact that they are just doing this without any proper regard and, as far as corporate stewardship would be concerned, it is obviously not on the books for a company like Monsanto. They don’t have any proper regard for their fellow man.”
VO : Genetically engineered foods could pose problems for human health. Experts are concerned about the possibility of antibiotic resistance, the creation of toxins and nutritional changes. In the case of GE wheat, health risks could potentially be far greater because of the vast number of people who eat it in their daily diet.
Olwen Hoffman, Organic farmer, Saskatchewan: “I guess the question is still out, how good or how bad are they to our environment and to ourselves ingesting it, and I would hate to think that 20-30 years down the line we find out what it may be doing to the insects in our soil and the quality of the plant life, and the quality of the food that we are eating. We would not be able to turn back then, it’s there”
Todd Leake, Farmer, North dakota : “It’s basically putting the farmers between a rock and a hard place. We’ve got our export customers who do not want Round-Up Ready wheat and we have these large corporate entities that are doing all this genetic modification who want to force it down upon us, and we are the ones that will pay the price.”
VO : These huge greenhouse complexes in Saint Louis, Missouri, contain some of the most closely-guarded secrets in the biotech industry. Monsanto has spent more than a decade and tens of millions of dollars developing their Roundup Ready variety of genetically engineered wheat. The company is so proud of Roundup Ready wheat that they won’t disclose the location of field trials. So secretive that they refused to be interviewed about it for this film. Perhaps not so surprising, given the dubious track-record of other GE crops like soybeans, corn and canola.
Arnold Taylor : “Once you bring in this wheat, with a genetic modification, a genetically engineered wheat, it is there forever. There is no calling it back if there is something wrong with it, if there is a problem with it; it’s there forever and there is no question that you can keep it segregated from your regular varieties because it can’t be done. So the question is , not whether or not you want to grow this particular variety, it is whether or not you want to be stuck with this forever.”
VO : It might not be long before that genie is out of the bottle. Monsanto has recently filed for regulatory approval for Roundup Ready wheat in both the US and Canada. If that approval is granted, genetically engineered wheat could be growing commercially in North America in just two or three years.
Professor Richard Gray : “There is a regular market in countries like the EU for the high quality wheat and it is very likely we will lose those markets for organic wheat, for example, if in fact we introduce GM wheat into this country.”
VO : European consumers have already made their feelings felt about genetically engineered food. Millers, supermarkets and food manufacturers recognise this and maintain a strict ban on any GM ingredients. But don’t just take our word for it. Research from the Canadian Wheat Board shows that two-thirds of their customers reject genetically engineered wheat. For some specific varieties the figure rises to eighty per cent. Even the Canadian and US markets themselves – traditionally in favour of GE food – won’t buy it. Flour millers and food producers all over the world are queueing up to say no to GE wheat. Their message to Canadian and US farmers is quite clear: if you grow Roundup Ready wheat, we’ll go elsewhere for our supplies. (30”)
Caption roller:
“It is critical…customers perceive the bakery’s bread as being GM-free” - Warburton’s (UK)
“Personally, I don’t think Roundup Ready offers a lot to consumers.” - Alex Waugh, National Association of British & Irish Millers.
“GMO wheat will for sure be a market destructor” - Andre & Cie (Belgium)
“If you do grow genetically modified wheat, we will not be able to buy any of your wheat – neither the GM nor the conventional.” - Rank Hovis McDougall (UK)
“Flour millers strongly doubt that…GM wheat or even coventional wheat that may contain GM wheat will be acceptable to the Japanese market.” - Japan Flour Millers Associaton
“The European milling industry will simply not buy one more kilo of US wheat at all if Roundup Ready wheat is commercialised.” - Grandi Molini (Italy)
“We will not do anything to erode consumer confidence” - General Mills (UK)
“Give us Roundup Ready bread? I don’t think so.” - US Wheat Associates
VO : You’ve got to hand it to Monsanto – even in the face of such worldwide opposition they’re still trying to persuade farmers that Roundup Ready wheat is the way forward. The company’s PR machine spins the line that they won’t push GE wheat until they’re sure the markets want it. But they don’t sound too convincing.
Graphic caption:
“We acknowledge that trade is a vital component of North American agriculture.” - Sally Metz, Monsanto Director of Wheat Technology
“Wheat is a highly scrutinised crop because much of it ends up on grocery shelves in the form of bread products…we’re never going to sell a seed of biotech grain until we know we have the demand.” - Michael Doane, Monsanto Industry Affairs Manager.
VO : For organic farmers in North America, the introduction of Roundup Ready wheat would spell disaster. They’re already reeling from contamination by other GE crops – notably canola, soya and corn. The tiniest trace of Roundup Ready wheat would be enough to make an organic miller or baker look for alternative supplies.
Keith Pavo, Organic farmer, Saskatchewan : “Canada is seen as a very pristine supplier of products to the organic market. Definitely one of the top suppliers in the world, especially for bread wheats and for us to jeopardise that relationship for something that is at this time unregulated seems to be a bit of a travesty in my eyes. Basically the organic market is one of trust and reputation and the buyers could very simply move on to somebody else if they even suspect that potentially there might be a problem down the road.”
VO : That’s bad news for organic farmers in Canada who’re worried about the effects of GE crops. Many are already facing major financial problems because of contamination from GE canola. The Saskatchewan Organic Directorate is suing Monsanto – and fellow biotech giants Aventis – for the loss of fourteen million dollars worth of organic canola. The lawsuit also claims that organic wheat exports – valued at one hundred and seventy million dollars - will be wiped out if Roundup Ready gets the go ahead.
Marc Loiselle : “It doesn’t take a whole lot of contamination from a neighbouring farm to happen for the wheat that I will be growing to be contaminated and that is certainly something that is being demonstrated by canola and is obviously the threat from the GE wheat trial plots that have been going across western Canada. There is a possiblity that some low grade contamination is already happening out there.”
VO : And it’s not just organic farmers who will lose out if Roundup Ready wheat is grown commercially. Conventional wheat farmers are also worried.
Terry Boehm, Vice-President, National Farmers’ Union, Canada : “Something like seeds are really are the commons, they’ve been part of an exchange amongst farmers for a number of millenia. The corporate world, their business strategy, they’re appropriating that entire history of wheat, and they’re patenting it, and they’re taking possession if that. And this is the commons, this is something that should be freely exchanged amongst farmers, amongst researchers.”
Dan Dutton, Farmer, Montana : “Monsanto primarily wants to introduce transgenic, GMO’s into Montana. They first talked about doing it in 2003 and now 2005, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. If we lose our export markets, and we know that Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Egypt and the EU have told us they don’t want GM crops especially GM wheat, and that will further depress prices.”
Senator April Fairfield, Democrat, North Dakota : “The economic situation in North Dakota right now is bleak without genetically modified wheat. If it’s introduced prematurely, if it’s introduced without certain safeguards in place it will be a crushing blow to our economy.”
VO : Of course, loss of export markets is only one problem farmers will have to face if genetically engineered wheat gets the go-ahead. Like other Monsanto crops, Roundup Ready wheat will bring a whole host of other problems with it. Already farmers throughout North America are embroiled in lawsuits with Monsanto over GE soybeans, corn and canola. Experts predict the consequences of GM wheat will be even worse.
Sarah Vogel, Lawyer & former North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner : “I do not believe that our handling system and storage system will be capable of keeping GM wheat and non-GM wheat separate. It can’t be done, there will be a problem, and who pays if farmers lose their export markets just because of mixtures that occurred down the stream of commerce. If the farmers do their best they could still lose their export markets, they could still have their wheat rejected.”
VO : North American farmers are used to fighting their own battles – against drought, disease, poverty and bureaucracy. Now they’re gearing up for what could be the biggest fight of all. It’s not just about a new genetically engineered crop. It’s not just about farmers being able to sow, harvest and sell their own wheat without interference. It’s about the right of all of us to eat good quality, uncontaminated food without worrying what might be in it. It’s about the bread of life.