Food Fight

• Share

The folks at McDonald's could not have expected an especially warm reception in France, but the manure in the parking lots still must have taken them by surprise. For the past three weeks it's been hard to visit a McDonald's anywhere in France without running the risk of encountering mountains of fresh manure--as well as not-so-fresh fruit and vegetables--dumped in front of the restaurants by protesting farmers.

There's a lot about McDonald's that angers the farmers--its sameness, its blandness, the culinary hegemony it represents--yet at the outset the demonstrations were remarkably genteel, with protesters occupying restaurants and offering customers an alternative meal of baguettes stuffed with cheese or foie gras. But lately things have turned nasty. Protesters are finding ever more to dislike about the uniquely American food--especially the very genes that make the McDonald's beef or bun or potato what it is.

Around the world people are taking a closer look at the genetic makeup of what they're eating--and growing uneasy with what they see. Over the past decade, genetically modified (GM) food has become an increasingly common phenomenon as scientists in the U.S. and elsewhere have rewoven the genes of countless fruits and vegetables, turning everyday crops into uber-crops able to resist frost, withstand herbicides and even produce their own pesticides. In all, more than 4,500 GM plants have been tested, and at least 40--including 13 varieties of corn, 11 varieties of tomatoes and four varieties of soybeans--have cleared government reviews.

For biotech companies such as Monsanto, based in the U.S., and Novartis AG, based in Switzerland, the rise of GM technology has meant boom times. Sales of GM seeds rose in value from $75 million in 1995 to $1.5 billion last year, and the crops they produce are turning up not only on produce shelves but also in processed foods from cookies to potato chips to baby food.

But many people question whether it's a good idea for fallible human beings to go mucking about with the genes of other species. It's one thing if a scientific experiment goes wrong in a lab, they say, but something else entirely if it winds up on your dinner plate. To date, there's nothing to suggest that re-engineered plants have ever done anyone any harm. Nonetheless, the European Union has blocked the importation of some GM crops, and since 1997 has required that foods that contain engineered DNA be labeled as such. Plenty of trade watchers in Washington see the European actions as one more tweak from an increasingly powerful E.U. no longer intimidated by U.S. economic might. While that may be, the fact remains that the U.S. Congress may address a labeling bill of its own this fall, and some private groups are threatening lawsuits to force the issue. Even without legal action, public opinion is turning a more skeptical eye on GM technology. "The farmers in France are right," observes Dennis Kucinich, a House Democrat from Cleveland, Ohio, who stumbled across the GM-food issue in the spring, and is turning it into something of a cause. "There's nothing more personal than food."