Biography: My Story
	Writings
	Selected Topics
	Calendar of Upcoming Events
	Past Appearances
	Contact Frances Moore Lappé
	Press Kit
	Current Ventures
	Past Events

Foreword to Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey Smith

By Frances Moore Lappé

Chelsea Green Publishing Company, September 2003

What do genetically modified seeds have to do with democracy? Everything.

To me, this craze—just like the sudden emergence of grain-fed meat I first wrote about thirty-three years ago—is a symptom. It is a symptom of our silencing. Think about it: None of us called for genetic manipulation of seeds. No not one of us said, yes, this new technology will benefit me, my family, and my community. Just as with the risks of feed-lot beef, now contributing to heart disease, groundwater depletion, antibiotic resistance and more, no citizens were asked to weigh the risks of GMOs against possible gains. Yet today most of us are eating them, while kept completely in the dark as to the hazards we may be facing – for ourselves, our children and the farming ecosystems on which our lives depend.

How has this assault on democracy happened?

As citizens, we’ve been duped and marginalized from our rightful role in momentous public choices. Surveys show that the majority of Americans share unease about the extent of corporate power within government, but that unease remains vague and unfocused. No more – for here Jeffrey Smith snaps us to attention: He offers the dramatic, fascinating, insider detail we need. He shows how how a handful of corporations, led by Monsanto, has used its enormous wealth, as well as intimidation and deception, to turn Americans into nutritional guinea pigs. How we’ve been forced without our knowledge – as “our” government rejects citizen demands for labeling -- to consume stable foods that have been virtually untested as to their effect on our health.

When you read this extraordinary and courageous book, you will never see your country the same way again. You’ll understand why other nations are appalled by U.S. actions to try to bully them into accepting genetically modified seeds. You’ll see how out-of-step we are with countries where citizens have, thank God, found their voices to bring forth intense public dialogue raising essential questions about GMOs.

Perhaps you’ll conclude, as I have, that the genetic engineering craze—absorbing hundreds of millions of dollars and untold time and energy both of promoters and doubters—is yet another catastrophic diversion from the core question of any democracy: Why hunger amidst plenty? The GMO debate jumps over this question entirely, as self-interested corporations deliberately reinforce the myth that our planet’s problem is scarcity from which only their products can save us.

In fact, Monsanto, and other corporations seeking to make the world dependent on their engineered seeds have had the gall to tell us we need their technology to “feed the hungry” when the bane of farmers around the world has long been overproduction, because too many people are so poor they can’t afford what’s already grown. And where there is scarcity locally, as in parts of Africa, for example, the last thing poor farmers need is to made dependent on costly seeds purchased each year from corporations accountable neither to them or their governments.

Jeffrey Smith has written a powerful, desperately needed book. My fervent hope is that in the years ahead we will look back and see his seminal work as a none-too-soon alarm that us to find our own courage to perceive GMOs as both a threat to health as well as a symptom of a deeper crisis. Genetic engineering could turn out to be our ultimate wake-up call. Where is democracy, we can ask, when just one company, Monsanto, controls 85 percent of all genetically engineered germplasm and has the power to saturate the commercial seed supply with genetically engineered varieties—with no input from the public who must bear the consequences? Could genetic engineering be what finally shocks us into finding our voices to ask the questions we must if we are to create authentic democracy and heal our planet?