A few months ago I saw a documentary called "Désobéissance civile", screened in Dijon as part of an annual film series organized by the alter-globalization group ATTAC. (For more about ATTAC, see note below.) Released in 2005, the film was less polished than I was expecting, but it was interesting in that it sought to make a case for anti-GMO activism as an example of civil disobedience. It traced the civil disobedience tradition from Henry David Thoreau to Gandhi to Martin Luther King, emphasizing the citizen's right--some would say obligation--to refuse to conform to an unjust law and the importance of non-violent action as a means of doing so.
After the film screening, a small group of faucheurs volontaires--individuals who have committed themselves to the voluntary destruction of GM crop trials and/or production fields--spoke about their experiences. It was a sobering testimonial. French law views such actions as "a serious group destruction of property", punishable by up to 5 years in prison and €75,000 in fines for first-time offenders (penalties may be doubled for repeat offenders). The faucheurs at the Dijon event spoke about the fines and legal fees they face, the knowledge that their future employment prospects will be permanently affected by their faucheur volontaire status, and their commitment to the cause nonetheless. In France, dozens of anti-GMO activists have received prison terms of up to several months; in some cases, they have been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in damages to companies such as Pioneer and Syngenta.
Contrast this to the situation in the UK, where, according to Matthew Reed, who writes about anti-GM activism as an element of the global organic movement in his book Rebels for the Soil (Earthscan, 2010), "British direct action protests [have been able to build] on an established legal defence in cases of non-violent direct action, that the sincerity of the protesters meant that they could escape the most severe sanctions of the law" (p117). A series of cases brought against anti-GM activists in the UK in 2000 and 2001 ended in acquittals, leading to a situation in which (according to an article in the Guardian) protesters "play up the amount of damage they have done in order to have their cases heard by juries, while companies... play down the damage done to their products in order for their cases to be heard in magistrates courts away from what are widely seen as 'fickle' juries".
After the film screening, a small group of faucheurs volontaires--individuals who have committed themselves to the voluntary destruction of GM crop trials and/or production fields--spoke about their experiences. It was a sobering testimonial. French law views such actions as "a serious group destruction of property", punishable by up to 5 years in prison and €75,000 in fines for first-time offenders (penalties may be doubled for repeat offenders). The faucheurs at the Dijon event spoke about the fines and legal fees they face, the knowledge that their future employment prospects will be permanently affected by their faucheur volontaire status, and their commitment to the cause nonetheless. In France, dozens of anti-GMO activists have received prison terms of up to several months; in some cases, they have been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euros in damages to companies such as Pioneer and Syngenta.
Contrast this to the situation in the UK, where, according to Matthew Reed, who writes about anti-GM activism as an element of the global organic movement in his book Rebels for the Soil (Earthscan, 2010), "British direct action protests [have been able to build] on an established legal defence in cases of non-violent direct action, that the sincerity of the protesters meant that they could escape the most severe sanctions of the law" (p117). A series of cases brought against anti-GM activists in the UK in 2000 and 2001 ended in acquittals, leading to a situation in which (according to an article in the Guardian) protesters "play up the amount of damage they have done in order to have their cases heard by juries, while companies... play down the damage done to their products in order for their cases to be heard in magistrates courts away from what are widely seen as 'fickle' juries".
Thus alter-globalization activists seek to do battle with international corporations pursuing planet-wide research, production and marketing strategies, but must nevertheless contend with distinct national legal regimes. Despite the arguments made by the documentary, GM crop-destruction activists in France have had difficulty making the legal case that theirs is a crime of conscience, and should be treated as such. The faucheurs volontaires have also sought to mount a defense based on France's Charte de l'environnement, granted constitutional status in 2004. Article 1 of the Charter states that "Chacun a le droit de vivre dans un environnement équilibré et respectueux de la santé"--every citizen has the right to a healthful and wholesome environment. Not surprisingly, the full legal and regulatory ramifications of the Charter have yet to be worked out.
At left: A poster calling for support of 60 faucheurs volontaires facing trial in June 2012 for destruction of GM grapevines at an INRA research station in September 2011.
Activists also operate within different cultural traditions of public demonstration. In my experience, one of the things American alternative agriculture advocates can't help but admire about French farmers is their flair for dramatic protest. Of course, the French in general are adept at staging public protests (a few weeks ago I witnessed a drive-in organized by a group calling itself "Auto-écoles en colère"--Angry Driving Schools). But French farmers can show real creativity in this regard, and they have great material with which to do so. The mass "invasion" of the Champs Élysées in Paris the weekend of May 23, 2010, for instance--organized by the group Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA), a large and influential young farmers' association--was a public relations masterpiece: working through the night, more than a thousand JA members transformed the famous boulevard into a temporary "farm", with virtually every French agricultural sector represented--vegetable growers, cereal and oilseed crop producers, wine-grape growers, dairy farmers and more. Tens of thousands of Parisiens turned out to admire the results. There were fields of mustard in full bloom, pyramids of fresh vegetables neatly arranged in their wooden crates, corrals of sheep bedded down on clean straw... politicians publicly applauded the event, while citizens posted blog comments saying things like, "If Paris were like this all the time, I could take my vacation there!"
Both Matthew Reed and Chaia Heller, in her new book Food, Farms, and Solidarity: French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops (Duke, 2013) seek to connect the success of the alternative and organic agriculture movements with farmers' strategic deployment of anti-GM activism. Both recount the events of the summer of 1999, when José Bové and other members of the Confédération Paysanne (the leftist French farmers union) gained international media attention for their action against a McDonald's in the town of Millau. Both also note how the McDonald's protest was more successful in this regard than the anti-GM crops protests Bové and the Confédération had been engaged in earlier that year--for Heller in particular, the McDonald's protest gave Bové the platform he needed to gain real public attention on the GM issue, in turn helping to make the European Union one of the few global regions where GM crops have yet to take hold.
Indeed, Heller goes further, arguing that French farmers (or at least, French farmers belonging to the Confédération Paysanne) are unique in the world in having mounted successful political opposition to the assumptions of conventional agriculture:
At left: A poster calling for support of 60 faucheurs volontaires facing trial in June 2012 for destruction of GM grapevines at an INRA research station in September 2011.
Activists also operate within different cultural traditions of public demonstration. In my experience, one of the things American alternative agriculture advocates can't help but admire about French farmers is their flair for dramatic protest. Of course, the French in general are adept at staging public protests (a few weeks ago I witnessed a drive-in organized by a group calling itself "Auto-écoles en colère"--Angry Driving Schools). But French farmers can show real creativity in this regard, and they have great material with which to do so. The mass "invasion" of the Champs Élysées in Paris the weekend of May 23, 2010, for instance--organized by the group Jeunes Agriculteurs (JA), a large and influential young farmers' association--was a public relations masterpiece: working through the night, more than a thousand JA members transformed the famous boulevard into a temporary "farm", with virtually every French agricultural sector represented--vegetable growers, cereal and oilseed crop producers, wine-grape growers, dairy farmers and more. Tens of thousands of Parisiens turned out to admire the results. There were fields of mustard in full bloom, pyramids of fresh vegetables neatly arranged in their wooden crates, corrals of sheep bedded down on clean straw... politicians publicly applauded the event, while citizens posted blog comments saying things like, "If Paris were like this all the time, I could take my vacation there!"
Both Matthew Reed and Chaia Heller, in her new book Food, Farms, and Solidarity: French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops (Duke, 2013) seek to connect the success of the alternative and organic agriculture movements with farmers' strategic deployment of anti-GM activism. Both recount the events of the summer of 1999, when José Bové and other members of the Confédération Paysanne (the leftist French farmers union) gained international media attention for their action against a McDonald's in the town of Millau. Both also note how the McDonald's protest was more successful in this regard than the anti-GM crops protests Bové and the Confédération had been engaged in earlier that year--for Heller in particular, the McDonald's protest gave Bové the platform he needed to gain real public attention on the GM issue, in turn helping to make the European Union one of the few global regions where GM crops have yet to take hold.
Indeed, Heller goes further, arguing that French farmers (or at least, French farmers belonging to the Confédération Paysanne) are unique in the world in having mounted successful political opposition to the assumptions of conventional agriculture:
While consumer-driven movements tend to propel food controversies in the Global North, in France, producers take the lead. .... Many smallholders in the United States and Europe actively resist the industrial model. Yet they rarely possess the cultural clout to inform policymaking bodies. France is perhaps the only country in the Global North where the fight is successfully led by producers rather than nonfarming citizens.
It's certainly true that farmers and others have had less success in opposing the spread of GM crops in the US than here in Europe. (Although again, the networks are global--a year or so ago I heard a talk given by the research director of a prominent agricultural research institution in the UK, who mentioned that they were working on a GM wheat, and that while their primary field sites were located in England, they had them replicated at sites in the US, "so we know we'll have results." And as others have pointed out, the French livestock sector is heavily dependent on imported GM soya from South America.)
Still, I can't help feeling that the US farmers' side of this story remains to be told: early activism by US dairy farmers against rBST was instrumental in preventing it from gaining market dominance in the US, even after it was approved by the FDA, while at the same time giving a boost to the organic dairy sector. Speaking more broadly, key organic and sustainable farmers' organizations in the US--Practical Farmers of Iowa, the Land Stewardship Project, California Certified Organic Farmers, and many others--maintain an active and tireless presence in Washington DC (working largely through the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition) and have had a real impact in shaping policy to support organic and sustainable farming in the US. Their work may be less dramatic than their French colleagues', but even in France, the policy battles have to be fought inch by inch and day by day, long after the dust has settled following the demonstrations in the fields or in the streets.
***
(Note for fanatical translators: ATTAC was founded in France in 1998, and stands for Association pour la taxation des transactions financières et pour l’action citoyenne, according to the French site--Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen Action. The international ATTAC site renders this slightly differently, however, as Association pour la taxation des transactions financière et l'aide aux citoyens--Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens. Thus the non-French version has been rendered less overtly militant in its posture--as a call to aid rather than a call to action.)
Still, I can't help feeling that the US farmers' side of this story remains to be told: early activism by US dairy farmers against rBST was instrumental in preventing it from gaining market dominance in the US, even after it was approved by the FDA, while at the same time giving a boost to the organic dairy sector. Speaking more broadly, key organic and sustainable farmers' organizations in the US--Practical Farmers of Iowa, the Land Stewardship Project, California Certified Organic Farmers, and many others--maintain an active and tireless presence in Washington DC (working largely through the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition) and have had a real impact in shaping policy to support organic and sustainable farming in the US. Their work may be less dramatic than their French colleagues', but even in France, the policy battles have to be fought inch by inch and day by day, long after the dust has settled following the demonstrations in the fields or in the streets.
***
(Note for fanatical translators: ATTAC was founded in France in 1998, and stands for Association pour la taxation des transactions financières et pour l’action citoyenne, according to the French site--Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen Action. The international ATTAC site renders this slightly differently, however, as Association pour la taxation des transactions financière et l'aide aux citoyens--Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens. Thus the non-French version has been rendered less overtly militant in its posture--as a call to aid rather than a call to action.)
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