The Dialectic of Pro-Poor Papaya - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 760

downatleastthreegenerationsoftheplantwithenduring97to100 percentefective-
ness. Extensive multiyear health and biosafety tests failed to find any negative effects on
humanhealthortheenvironment(Sakuanrungsirikulet al.2004).Norwereanynega-
tive effects identified on pollinators or on beneficial insects or predatory mites, and no
differences were observed in soil microbes around GE or non-GE plants.
Allergenicity risks were also assessed and came up negative. The feeding behav-
iors of rats were studied and found to be equivalent between rats fed GE and those fed
non-GE papaya. The nutritional profiles of GE and non-GE papaya were assessed and
alsofoundtobeequivalent(Sakuanrungsirikulet al.2004).heissueofgenelowwas
also judged to be of minimal concern: Most cultivated papaya plants are self-pollinated,
and even in the worst case of outcrossing the result would be other papaya acquiring
virus resistance; not necessarily a negative outcome for farmers. Moreover, it was argued
that in Thailand no risk to wild relatives should exist, as Carica papaya 'sclosestrelated
genus, Vasconcellea , has its center of origin in the Andes, far away from the fields of Thai
farmers.
Greenpeace Challenges Deployment
The greatest challenge facing those charged with introducing virus-resistant transgenic
into Thailand, however, turned out to be not a technical but a political one. Greenpeace,
the multinational nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in the Netherlands,
hadestablishedaSoutheastAsiaoicein2000inBangkok.hisSoutheastAsiagroup
took an early decision to drop the wider Greenpeace campaign for forest protection and
focus instead on an anti-GMO campaign, an effort that was identified as having a higher
chanceofsuccessforthenewlyestablishedorganization(Davidson2008).Prasartsee's
newly transformed virus-resistant papaya was identified as a campaigning target given
that it would represent the first GE crop proposed to be grown in the country.
On27July2004Greenpeaceactivistsdressedinwhite-hoodedpersonalprotection
suits, goggles, and respiratory masks traveled to Khon Kaen research station and used
aladdertoclimboverthebarbedwirefencethatsurroundedPrasartsee'sexperimen-
tal GE papaya field trial. Having already alerted local and national television and print
media, photographers recorded powerful and emotive images of gloved hands transfer-
ringgeneticallymodiiedplantmaterialintohazardouswastebins.Otheractivistsheld
large yellow banners that read, in both Thai and English, “Stop GMO Field Trials.”
Greenpeace'sstrategyinvolvedmorethanadirectactionapproachaimedatsymboli-
cally uprooting GE papaya crops in order to raise attention to its concerns. The orga-
nizationsimultaneouslyreleasednewsthattransgenicpapayaseedshadalreadybeen
removed from the Khon Kaen station and they were in unregulated use by Thai farmers.
This revelation established a clear media and political narrative for the issue as concern-
ing the unexpected and uncontrolled “contamination” of GE materials becoming wide-
spreadinhailand'senvironment.heGreenpeaceallegationseriouslyembarrassed