Life, livelihoods and God: why genetically modified organisms oppose caring for life.

de Gruchy, Steve

To choose life

At first reading, the Book of Deuteronomy is not one of the most exciting books in the Bible. But as it moves towards its climax, in which Moses will take leave of the people he has shepherded from slavery to the brink of freedom, his own sense of passion and compassion bubbles up. Having given them the Law in rather pedestrian detail, he gets to the nub of the matter with words to this effect (27-30):

 Look people; God has brought you out of slavery and given you freedom. But
 this freedom is a fragile thing, and you need to take seriously what it
 means to live together and to build a society together. To put it bluntly,
 you really have only two choices: to live with God and therefore to
 structure your society in such a way that it celebrates God's presence in
 all things and cares for the vulnerable people of the earth; or to abandon
 God and therefore to abandon any responsibility towards the earth and its
 vulnerable people. If you go with the former option, God will bless your
 community and your land will flourish and be fruitful. If you choose the
 latter, then just the opposite will happen. You really can't have it both
 ways. You have to choose either life and prosperity, or death and
 adversity. It's your choice.

Listen to Moses as he reaches the climax:

 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before
 you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your
 descendents may live, loving the Lord you God, obeying him, and holding
 fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days. (Deut.
 30:19,20)

Thus in the end Moses is crystal clear about the basic point: To choose God is to choose life. The purpose of holding fast to God, and obeying God's Law, is "life and length of days". (1)

Here we begin to discover something interesting about Deuteronomy, namely, the layers of story woven into the book. At first glance, we think we are dealing directly with Moses himself on the brink of the crossing of the Jordan. But further examination leads to the recognition that the book has been crafted almost six centuries later, and that the people of God, in the face of entirely new challenges to their lives and faith, are being invited to remember Moses and to consider themselves as if they were embedded in the history of the time. (2) The challenge then to "choose life" is not just a speech of Moses that happened to be recorded for posterity, but a very specific capturing, for their own context, of the essence of the faith by people who were seeking to guide Israel in the midst of the 7th century BCE. Of all the things they could hold on to, it was this that they proclaimed. And through the regulatory framework for social existence that dominates the book, Deuteronomy makes it clear that "life" is not just a philosophical notion, but something that finds concrete realization in people's livelihoods.

The fundamental point for those who wrote Deuteronomy, then, is that a commitment to the God of life without, at the same time, a commitment to the livelihoods of people within the community is impossible; and, without that deep commitment to the God of life, the livelihoods of the people are not sustainable. The choice is between life and prosperity, on one side, and death and adversity on the other. We too--the people of God today--are invited to hear the same words of Moses, and to take seriously the choice for life and livelihoods in our contemporary world.

Now it is clear that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) (3) pose a challenge to the Christian faith today in precisely these two areas, life and livelihoods, and it is our unwillingness to separate these two concerns--indeed, along with Moses and the Deuteronomist, to assert their fundamental unity--that should characterize our response as the people of God. For the engineering of life and life forms, and the implications that this has for the livelihoods of so many people in the world, demands the concern of we who worship the God of life, who seek to celebrate life in all its diversity, and who are invited to the task of "caring for life".

The promise of genetic engineering (GE) for agriculture

Whilst farmers have for thousands of years practised selective breeding to develop the gene pool of plants and animals, genetic engineering presents the world with a dramatic increase in the power and possibilities for changing and adapting plant and animal life. (4) What, then, is this new technology, and what does it offer to agriculture and specifically to plants, which are the particular focus of this essay?

The cells of living organisms contain genetic material known as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), or in some cases, RNA (ribonucleic acid), and this material forms genes. Genetic engineering is the manipulation of these genes within species or between species, and even between plants and animals. It was made possible by the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, and then in the 1970s of a family of enzymes which made it possible for DNA to be isolated, cut and then pasted onto another fragment of DNA from another organism. This creates recombinant DNA, which can be infinitely multiplied (known as cloning), and then introduced back into a living organism, which becomes a genetically modified organism (GMO). The past three decades have seen the accelerated development of the tools and techniques for such genetic engineering.

Donald and Ann Bruce note a range of steps that are undertaken in the process of the genetic modification of plants. (5) The desired gene is identified and isolated from a donor organism, and is then used to create the new gene or recombinant genetic sequence, with a marker gene added (for later identification). This gene is then multiplied and inserted into the host organism using either a particle gun or what is known as a bacterial "vector". Because of the imprecision of this process, only a small percentage of the treated cells will respond to the inserted DNA in the desired manner, and so a process of selection of these cells takes place using the marker gene that was added earlier. Under optimum conditions, each selected plant cell can then grow to become a transgenic plant with every cell in the plant having the newly inherited DNA. This means that any daughter plant that develops through cuttings or pollination is also transgenic, and that all future pollen and seed will carry the foreign genes.

There are two basic types of transgenic plants, namely, those in which the properties of the food are modified through the gene change, and those in which the food is not itself modified but now carries a gene that enhances resistance to disease, drought or herbicide. Given the scope of the discussion about genetic engineering it is somewhat iconic that tobacco was the first plant to be genetically engineered, in 1983. Since that time a number of other important plants such as tomato, soya beans, oilseed rape, chicory, maize and cotton have been genetically modified, planted and sold.

In summary, there are currently six potential applications of genetic engineering to agriculture and food production. These are:

1) to increase the yields of crops, which has had little success thus far;

2) to produce crops that can withstand environmental pressures such as drought, salinity or frost, although again this has had little success;

3) to increase the nutritional value of the plant, so that staple legumes and cereals would carry vital amino acids which they currently lack, thus reducing the required quantity of food intake--a process which is still in its infancy;

4) to enhance resistance to disease, weeds and pests--or, as in most cases, to enhance tolerance to designer herbicides which kill off the disease, weeds or pests but leave the plant healthy; this is perhaps the most well-developed aspect of GMOs at present;

5) to minimize the need for fertilizers and agrochemicals, although this seems rather unlikely as the companies which produce the GMOs also produce the fertilizers and chemicals; and finally

6) to enhance the texture, flavour or shelf-life of the plant; this could aid global trade in foods that spoil easily, particularly fruit and vegetables; the Flavr Savr[TM] tomato is a good example of this.

On the face of it, therefore, GMOs present themselves as a wonderful solution to world concerns about food security, suggesting that, with the correct application of certain techniques, hunger could be a thing of the past. To many people this contribution to social development is the key blessing that flows from the technology, and so the sponsors of GMOs and biotechnology naturally promote themselves as a group which really cares for life and for people's livelihoods. Witness this statement which Monsanto, the giant chemical company turned life-sciences corporation, attempted to have endorsed by African leaders in 1998:

 As we stand on the edge of a new millennium, we dream of a tomorrow without
 hunger. To achieve that dream, we must welcome the science that promises
 hope. We know advances in biotechnology must be tested and safe, but they
 should not be unduly delayed. Biotechnology is one of tomorrow's tools in
 our hands today. Slowing its acceptance is a luxury our hungry world cannot
 afford. (6)

This theme has been picked up by various people in developing countries. For example, Florence Wambugu of Kenya, author of the book Modifying Africa: How Biotechnology Can Benefit the Poor and Hungry, argues that biotechnology, and specifically genetic engineering, offers the only solution to the food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. This report has been given of her speech at the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) conference in San Diego, USA, in June 2001:

 African biotech scientist, Florence Wambugu, addressed BIO 2001 convention
 delegates yesterday, reminding them of the plight of African farmers who
 cannot grow enough food to feed their communities. Biotech crops offer
 enormous potential to help, she said, and she called on companies to
 continue to look for ways to supply farmers with the seeds they need. (7)

It would seem, then, that the issue is clear. Biotechnology and genetic engineering is the only way to solve the food crisis in poor and developing countries. Yet the truth of the matter is that this is an extremely limited perspective, and there are many, many strident voices from the third world--voices of scientists, academics, farmers, indigenous peoples, activists and people of faith--who believe that biotechnology and genetic engineering are so deeply embedded in what is wrong in the world that it cannot possibly offer any constructive solutions. Witness these sentiments:

 We, the undersigned delegates of African countries participating in the 5th
 Extraordinary Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources, 8-12 June
 1998, Rome, strongly object that the image of the poor and hungry from our
 countries is being used by giant multinational corporations to push a
 technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly, nor economically
 beneficial to us ...

 We do not believe that such companies or gene technologies will help our
 farmers to produce the food that is needed in the 21st century. On the
 contrary, we think it will destroy the diversity, the local knowledge and
 the sustainable agricultural systems that our farmers have developed for
 millennia and that it will thus undermine our capacity to feed ourselves
 ...

 We agree and accept that mutual help is needed to further improve
 agricultural production in our countries. We also believe that Western
 science can contribute to this. But it should be done on the basis of
 understanding and respect for what is already there. It should be building
 on local knowledge, rather than replacing and destroying it. And most
 importantly: it should address the real needs of our people, rather that
 serving only to swell the pockets and control of giant industrial
 corporations. (8)

This is not an isolated response. (9) From a specifically Christian perspective, the most strident opposition to genetic engineering in agriculture has come from the British churches development agency, Christian Aid, in their report, Selling Suicide: Farming, False Promises and Genetic Engineering in Developing Countries. The document argues that GM crops are irrelevant to ending hunger, the new technology puts too much power over food into too few hands, and that too little is done to help small farmers grow food in sustainable and organic ways. (10)

A careful reading of the statements and documents produced by those in favour of, and those opposed to, genetic engineering suggests that differing perspectives on life and livelihoods are at the heart of the struggle. These perspectives are informed by two radically different approaches to social development, approaches within which the wider social framework in which genetic engineering and biotechnology is understood. To make sense of the debate, then, we need to take account of this wider framework:

To develop both nature and natives (11)

Gilbert Rist in his book The History of Development echoes the views of many other commentators (12) when he argues that the introduction of the "developed-underdeveloped" dialectic into international relations after the second world war struck a powerful chord in Western society. This was. he said, because it drew upon deep philosophical and cultural roots which had been struck in the Enlightenment concerning issues such as growth, progress and optimism. (13) Rather than looking backwards for truth and wisdom, people then assumed a forward-looking orientation, as science and technology began to create all kinds of unheard-of opportunities. The discovery of human agency in the making of "history", together with this future orientation, contributed to a growing sense that life can and does get better. This world-view provided the ideological partner to the accumulation of capital, the reinvestment of profit, industrialization, and the search for new raw materials and markets.

At the same time, and directly related to this, was the emergence of modern "science". Usually seen as a value-free, universal search for truth, it is crucial to recognize this as a particular world-view emerging in a particular set of social circumstances. The discovery of human agency in "history" was, at the same time, the splitting off of nature as a realm that could be observed, interrogated, experimented with and altered. Nature became a "thing" that could be dominated and manipulated by human beings, and with that came the emergence of modern biology, zoology, and a host of other scientific disciplines. Vandana Shiva has further convincingly demonstrated how modern science was at the same time a deeply patriarchal project, a patriarchy that served both capitalism and colonialism, and in turn served by them:

 The "de-mothering" of nature through modern science and the marriage of
 knowledge with power was simultaneously a source of subjugating women as
 well as non-European peoples. Robert Boyle, the famous scientist who was
 also the governor of the New England Company, saw the rise of mechanical
 philosophy as an instrument of power not just over nature but also over the
 original inhabitants of America. He explicitly declared his intention of
 ridding the New England Indians of their ridiculous notions about the
 workings of nature. He attached their perception of nature, "as a kind of
 goddess", and argued that "the veneration, wherewith men are imbued for
 what they call nature, has been a discouraging impediment to the empire of
 man over the inferior creatures of God". (14)

This relationship between science, colonialism and power meant that, to Western European men, there was no difference between controlling nature and controlling natives. It was the very ability to do the former that marked off their superiority over--and therefore justified their control of--the latter. And as the natives were shown, by science, to be very close to nature, it was really the same thing. (15) Rist quotes Albert Sarraut's moral justification of colonialism:

 It should not be forgotten that we are centuries ahead of them, long
 centuries during which--slowly and painfully, through a lengthy effort of
 research, invention, meditation and intellectual progress aided by the very
 influence of our temperate climate--a magnificent heritage of science,
 experience and moral superiority has taken shape, which makes us eminently
 entitled to protect and lead the races lagging behind us. (16)

The first world war may have put an end to naked colonialism, but it certainly did not put an end to this powerful connection between capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy and science. The desire by the North to control both nature and the natives in the search for greater and greater profit found new expression in the language of "development". It was a perfect term, for it drew on the centuries of Western thinking about growth and progress. Crucially, it also cemented the link between nature and natives. The metaphor of development comes, of course, from nature itself. Natural things, like trees and animals, start small and then develop to become bigger. Science enables us to help nature develop "better". Likewise, natives start "small", and we help them to become "bigger". With the term colonialism out of vogue, what better than the term "development"!

Thus, after the second world war the binary relationship of colonizer and colonized was completely replaced with that of developed and underdeveloped. Almost without exception, those nations that were colonies--the "natives"--were now understood as "underdeveloped", and those that were the colonial, powers were "developed". Rist puts it in this way:

 From 1949 onwards, often without realizing it, more than two billion
 inhabitants of the planet found themselves changing their name' being
 "officially" regarded as they appeared in the eyes of others, called upon
 to deepen their Westernization by repudiating their own values. No longer
 African, Latin American or Asian (not to speak of Bambara, Shona, Berber,
 Quechua, Aymara, Balinese or Mongol), they were simply "underdeveloped".
 This new "definition" was accepted by those who headed the independent
 states, because it was a way of asserting their claim to benefit from the
 "aid" that was supposed to lead to "development". For the colonized, it was
 a way of affirming the legal equality that was refused them. It looked as
 if they had everything to gain - respectability and prosperity. But their
 right to self-determination had been acquired in exchange for a right to
 self-definition. In gaining political independence, they forfeited their
 identity and their economic autonomy, and were now forced to travel the
 "development path" mapped out for them by others. (17)

By defining "underdevelopment" as something that the natives simply are, the definition focused on their perceived shortcomings (from the vantage point of the North), rather than the historical and political relationships between nations dominated by the North (such as slavery or colonialism). Furthermore, it made "aid" the only solution to the problem. Developed nations were called upon to assist underdeveloped nations to develop so as to "be like them", (18) mainly through the application of the benefits of science and the control of nature through industrialization. But has it worked? Have either nature, or the natives, actually benefited from development?

The simple answer is no. Serge Latouche has drawn on the statistics of the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to show that while the world's income multiplied by 2.5 between 1950 and 1987, the gap between the richest twenty percent and the poorest twenty percent grew from 30:1 to 60:1. (19) Susan George makes a similar point when discussing the world's debt crisis. She notes that between 1982 and 1990, poor countries paid $418 billion more to rich nations than what they received (six times the amount of the Marshall Plan, adjusted for inflation). And yet--and "here's the rub"--for all this transfer of capital from the poor to the rich, the debtor countries "began the 1990s fully 61 percent more in debt that they were in 1982"! (20)

Within poor countries, also, the burden of "development" falls upon those with little access to power, and predominantly therefore upon women. Systems of male domination, and the exploitation of women through a lack of access to economic and political power, means that "when development programmes have negative effects, these are felt more acutely by women". (21) Sen and Grown demonstrate that this is in fact the case, and that during the period of the United Nations Decade for the Advancement of Women (1975-85), the socio-economic status of the great majority of women in the third world "worsened considerably". (22)

The widening gap between rich and poor, and between men and women, is not the only thing that has happened on a global scale. The impact of development on many third-world countries has been devastating in terms of ecological damage. Eduardo Galeano comments:

 In the North and the South, the East and the West, man [sic] is sawing off
 the branch on which he is sitting with feverish enthusiasm ... Humiliated
 nature has been made over to the service of capital accumulation ... acid
 rain from industrial fumes is killing the woods and lakes of the world,
 while toxic wastes are poisoning the rivers and seas. In the South,
 imported agro-business prospers, uprooting trees and human beings ... (23)

It would seem, then, that in pursuit of the development of both nature and the natives, "development" has in fact achieved the opposite, prompting Vandana Shiva to refer to it as maldevelopment. (24) Arturo Escobar, in his book, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, makes the, point quite nicely:

 Development was--and continues to be for the most part--a top-down,
 ethnocentric and technocratic approach, which treats people and cultures as
 abstract concepts, statistical figures to be moved up and down in the
 charts of "progress". Development was conceived not as a cultural process
 (culture was a residual variable, to disappear with the advance of
 modernization) but instead as a system of more or less universally
 applicable technical interventions intended to deliver some "badly needed"
 goods to a "target" population. It comes as no surprise that development
 became a force so destructive to third-world cultures, ironically in the
 name of people's interests. (25)

Genetic engineering as "cultural invasion"

We noted above that the differing perspectives on the contribution of genetic engineering to food supply in the third world are rooted in two fundamentally opposed models of development. Those who argue that GE is the solution to the world's problems of hunger and poverty, argue from the dominant model of development, seeing, almost without exception, economic growth as the fundamental sign of development, capitalism as the unquestioned mode of development, and technology as the engine of development.

The sponsors of biotechnology and genetic engineering as the solution to third-world poverty cannot be understood save in this context. We see here again, I believe, the powerful relationship between developing nature and developing natives that has dominated the approach of the North to the people of the South for centuries. In fact, the primary moral justification of genetic engineering is that it will enable the North to make life for the natives better by making nature better. But there is inevitably the suspicion that perhaps the very same reasons that lead the North to want to control both nature and natives--namely power and profit--are behind the desire to "develop" both nature and natives. Biotechnology and GE fit perfectly into the dominant model, for they are the supreme icons of the Northern desire to manipulate both nature and the natives in the pursuit of commercial gain by those who control science. The legacy of the colonial relationship lives on in this model of development, and we see it so clearly demonstrated in the powerful role that just five giant agrochemical companies (26)--Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Dow Chemical and Aventis CropScience--play in the world: controlling markets, pressurizing legislators, setting up and funding "not-forprofit" lobby groups, enforcing patents, running illegal trials, taking genetic materials from indigenous peoples and cultures, controlling researchers through contract obligations, taking farmers to court and developing "terminator" seeds. (27)

This, more than any other reason, is why so many people in both the South and the North are opposed to genetic engineering and biotechnology. Whilst promoters of GE will always try to argue that it is overfed "greens" and Luddites from the West who for sentimental reasons oppose progress, the truth lies elsewhere. The survivors of maldevelopment and their allies know only too well that the dominant model of development serves commercial interests, and in the process a host of other factors to do with people, community, culture, and the earth have been lost. The theologian Celia Deanne-Drummond puts it succinctly:

 So far the direction taken by much of food technology seems far from
 desirable as a global project. Even those projects that claim to be
 offering assistance to the poorer nations of the world, such as the
 introduction of Vitamin A in rice plants, seem like a technological fix
 that assumes a dubious model of development. Indeed, the political
 assumptions behind the call for a spread of the technology to poorer parts
 of the world betray a lack of real appreciation of the limitations of the
 "development" models of the past. A fostering of respect for local
 communities and cultures might encourage a deeper wisdom that is prepared
 to listen to the voices of those who are different culturally and who do
 not share the philosophical assumptions that have dominated the Western
 world. (28)

For those who experience the "limitations of the development models of the past" and who "do not share the philosophical assumptions" of the West, there are other models of development--and they take a route that is resolutely opposed to genetic engineering. These models take seriously local culture and conditions, they recognize that it is people and not things that must be "developed", that control over one's life and choices is at the heart of development, that outside aid and technology creates dependency and further undermines self-sufficiency, and that the goal for a community of people is to sustain and enhance their livelihoods, balancing the environment with social needs. (29) In terms of food these models recognize that the issue is not more food but fewer hungry people, (30) that it is not about higher production but greater distribution, (31) that it is not about producing crops for foreign markets but feeding local populations, (32) that it is better to have people employed to dig up weeds and spend their wages in the community than to purchase expensive herbicides from companies outside the community.

This implies that whilst the dominant model of development may talk about food security, which can then be "secured" by outside technology, alternative models are concerned about food sovereignty, that is, people exercising their own sovereignty over the food chain. For people who are seeking this kind of development, and want sovereignty over their own livelihoods and food, biotechnology and genetic engineering is experienced as what Paulo Freire calls "cultural invasion":

 In this phenomenon, the invaders penetrate the cultural context of another
 group, in disrespect of the latter's potentialities; they impose their own
 view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the
 invaded by curbing their expression. Whether urbane or harsh, cultural
 invasion is thus always an act of violence against the persons of the
 invaded culture, who lose their originality or face the threat of losing
 it. (33)

The struggle for authentic development, what Freire calls humanization, is always a struggle for one's own culture against the dominant culture of the invader, the colonizer, the developer. It is the struggle for authenticity, for integrity, for sovereignty. It is the recognition with Gustavo Gutierrez that "the issue of development does in fact find its true place in the more universal, profound and radical perspective of liberation. It is only within this framework that development finds its true meaning and possibilities of accomplishing something worthwhile". (34) That is why the global struggle against genetic engineering is rooted in the cultures and agricultural traditions of indigenous peoples and communities. There is a recognition that what is at stake is not just a struggle for food, but a struggle for life itself.

Life, livelihoods and God

We began this essay with a reflection from Deuteronomy, and a recognition that for the people of God caring for life and caring for livelihoods goes hand in hand. We have explored the possible contribution of biotechnology and genetic engineering towards food provision in third-world countries, and noted how its promoters are embedded in the dominant model of development that is experienced as "cultural invasion" amongst people of the South. Marketed as a contribution to enhance the livelihoods of poor people, genetic engineering will inevitably undermine those livelihoods as it sucks the profit of agricultural productivity away from the people who work with the earth and deposits it in the accounts of the giant agricultural biotech companies. This should not surprise us. Life and livelihoods are indivisible. The Enlightenment desire to control both nature and natives finds contemporary expression in biotechnology. The desire to invade plant cells with recombinant DNA in the search for new products and new profits is at one with the willingness to invade the cultures of people in the third-world in the search for new markets and new profits.

Against this, the people of God need to assert that the integrity of creation and the integrity of people's livelihoods is indivisible. The God of life sustains and cares for both and, as we care for life, we too are called to care for creation and for people's livelihoods. Part of that task, theologically, is to recapture the integrity of a spirituality that has been so tom by its partnership with the Enlightenment, and its split between history and nature. (35) Here we can learn from precisely those cultures that seek to resist invasion. Harvey Sindima, from Malawi, represents the voices of so many indigenous cultures:

 For the Malawians the universe is full of sacred life, full of life that
 transcends itself through fecundity, that in its abundant creativity'
 continues to cross frontiers and break forth into new dimensions, always
 recreating itself and presenting people with ever new possibilities.

 Moyo is the Malawian word for such life. Moyo, written with a lower case
 m, is both physical and spiritual. In part, moyo is life as it is
 manifested in biological existence. As such it is shared by, and bonds
 together, all living things. But moyo is also spiritual and sacred: even
 moyo as it is manifested in biological existence is rooted in the Mystery.
 Divine life, signified by the capitalized Moyo, is the source and
 foundation of all moyo. A life--that of people, plants, animals, and the
 earth--originates from and therefore shares an intimate relationship of
 bondedness with divine life; all life is divine life. (36)

Can we, within this kind of framework, hear the Jesus of John's gospel speak so often and so freely about life? He says, "I am the bread of life" (6:48), "I am the resurrection and the life" (11:25) and "I am the way, the truth and the life" (14:6). In speaking of his own life he says, "I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly" (10:10), and makes it clear that "whoever believes in the Son has eternal life" (3:36). Little wonder, then, that in the opening words of his prologue, the evangelist prepares us for Jesus in this way: "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people" (1:3), and at the end, he reminds us that the whole point of his gospel is that we may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and thus "may have life in his name" (20:31). Can we who worship and serve the moyo, known to us in this Jesus Christ, recognize and care for moyo in the world around us?

As witnesses to the God of life, to the presence of God's life in the earth, nature, human existence and community livelihoods, the people of God today hear again the challenge from Moses: "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live." What I have argued in this essay is that to "choose life" today means standing alongside and supporting those who are opposed to the use of genetic engineering in agriculture and food, in the name of the God of life.

NOTES

(1) We would want to argue that this serves as a hermeneutical filter with which to read even the Law itself, for there is no doubt that a good number of those rules and regulations do not themselves always nurture and care for life.

(2) Here I am drawing on Gerhard von Rad's classic commentary, Deuteronomy (ET: Philadelphia, Westminster, 1966). Von Rad notes how the sermons of "Moses" are really aimed at Israel during the later monarchy; see p.28.

(3) Insofar as genetic engineering has two basic applications, namely, in human life and in non-human species, my concern in this essay is with the latter, and particularly with plant life.

(4) And, of course, human life. See the previous note.

(5) Engineering Genesis: The Ethics of Genetic Engineering in Non-Human Species, London, Earthscan, 1999, p.11. I am indebted to this excellent book for enabling me, a non-scientist, to understand key aspects of the detail and scope of genetic engineering.

(6) Quoted in Brewster Kneen, Farmageddon: Food and the Culture of Biotechnology, Gabriola Island, Canada, New Society Publishers, 1999, p.18.

(7) See www.modifyingafrica.net/news.htm. Wambugu was formerly an intern with Monsanto in St Louis, USA.

(8) Let Nature's Harvest Continue, a statement from all the African delegates (except South Africa) to FAO negotiations on the International Undertaking for Plant Genetic Resources, June 1998. www.oneworld.org/panos/news/biodoc5.htm.

(9) A thoroughgoing critique of biotechnology and GE in agriculture is offered by Kneen, Farmageddon A wide range of statements and condemnations of GE in agriculture are available on the Internet. See for example Third World Network www.twnside.org/bio.htm; The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) at www.i-sis.org,uk; Grains of Delusion: Golden Rice Seen from the Ground. Joint Report by BIOTHAI (Thailand), CEDAC (Cambodia), DRCSC (India), GRAIN, MASIPAG (Philippines), PAN-Indonesia and UBINIG (Bangladesh) Feb. 2001. www.grain.org/publications/reports/delusion.htm; Union of Concerned Scientists (USA) at www.ucsusa.org/; Gene Watch UK at www.genewatch.org/; "NGO Statement for the International Conference New Biotechnology Foods and Crops: Science, Safety and Society. Bangkok, 10-12 July 2001, at beb@igc.org; and others.

(10) Andrew Simms, Selling Suicide, London, Christian Aid, 1999.

(11) The awkward and uncomfortable use of the term "natives" is intended to jar.

(12) See for example, Teodor Shanin, "The Idea of Progress", in Majid Rahnema and Victoria Bawtree eds, The Post-Development Reader, Cape Town, David Philip, 1997, pp.65-71; Vandana Shiva, Staving Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, London, Zed Books, 1991; and Gustavo Esteva, "Development", in W. Sachs ed., The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power; London, Zed, 1992, pp.6-25.

(13) See Gilbert Rist, The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith, London: Zed, 1997.

(14) Staying Alive, p. 19.

(15) The story of Sara Bartman, the "Hottentot Venus", is a perfect illustration of the link between nature and natives in the Western scientific paradigm. "Sara Bartman was a Khoi Khoi woman who was taken from South Africa, and then exhibited as a freak across Britain. In 1814 she was taken to France, and became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality. She died the next year. But even after her death, Sara Bartman remained an object of imperialist scientific investigation. In the name of science, her sexual organs and brain were displayed in the Musee de l'Homme in Paris until as recently as 1985." Quoted from a review of the movie, The Life and Times of Sara Bartman: The Hottentot Venus, by Zola Maseko. See www.frif.com/new99/hottento.html.

(16) Rist. The History of Development, p.58.

(17) Ibid., p.79.

(18) Title of an essay by Eduardo Galeano in Rahnema and Bawtree eds. The Post-Development Reader, pp.214-22.

(19) Serge Latouche, "Paradoxical Growth", in The Post-Development Reader, p. 142.

(20) Susan George, "How the Poor Develop the Rich", in The Post-Development Reader, pp.209f.

(21) Gita Sen and Caren Grown, Development, Crises and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives, London, Earthscan, 1988, p.26.

(22) Ibid., p.16.

(23) "To Be Like Them", in The Post-Development Reader, pp.214f.

(24) See Staying Alive, pp.5,6.

(25 Extract reprinted as Arturo Escobar, "The Making and Unmaking of the Third World through Development", The Post-Development Reader, p.81.

(26) See the article by Ann M. Thayer in Chemical and Engineering News, 17 Sept. 2001, 79, 38, pp.25-32.

(27) One of the best records of this is found in Kneen, Farmageddon, but many records of this type of activity exist in the common domain on countless web pages.

(28) Biology and Theology Today: Exploring the Boundaries. London, SCM Press, 2001, pp.108.

(29) The literature in support of this is vast. See David Korten, Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda, West Hartford CT, Kumarian, 1990; Robert Chambers, Whose Reality Counts: Putting the First Last, London, Intermediate Technology Publications, 1997; Larry Rasmussen, Earth Community, Earth Ethics, Maryknoll NY, Orbis, 1996; Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive; and a range of contributors to Rahnema and Bawtree, The Post Development Reader.

(30) The point has often been made that countries can be net exporters of food even when their own citizens are dying of famine, such as in Ireland between 1845-49, and Ethiopia in the 1980s.

(31) The FAO estimates that current world food production stands at 150% of current world requirements. Furthermore, the track record of the Green Revolution is poor in that whilst food production did rise, so did the number of people growing hungry. See Selling Suicide, p.5.

(32) It makes no sense, in other words, to turn fields of agricultural land into cotton plantations, even if this does bring in foreign currency. The chances are slight of that foreign currency filtering down to the local labourers so that they are better fed than if they simply grew their own food. Yet, the current debt crisis and structural adjustment policies often put the value of foreign currency ahead of the hunger of rural populations.

(33) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, rev, ed., London, Penguin, 1993, p. 133.

(34) A Theology of Liberation, London, SCM Press 1974, p.36. It is striking that Gutierrez deals with this issue as the second chapter of his book, immediately after his first chapter deals with the definition of theology itself (as "critical reflection on praxis").

(35) See Rasmussen, Earth Community, Earth Ethics.

(36) "Community of Life: Ecological Theology in African Perspective", in Birch et al. eds, Liberating Life: Contemporary Approaches to Ecological Theology, Maryknoll NY, Orbis, 1990, p. 144.

Steve de Gruchy is the director of the graduate programme in theology and development at the School of Theology, University of Natal, South Africa. He teaches and writes in the areas of political and social ethics, community building, and the challenges that globalization brings to people of faith. He is a member of the WCC working group on genetic engineering.