The cables further confirm previous reports from the Web site Truthout on the diplomatic pressure the US has put on Spain and France, two countries with powerful anti-GE crop movements, to speed up their biotech approval process and quell anti-GE sentiment within the European Union (EU).

Several cables describe “biotechnology outreach programs” in countries across the globe, including African, Asian and South American countries where Western biotech agriculture had yet to gain a foothold. In some cables (such as this 2010 cable from Morocco) US diplomats ask the State Department for funds to send US biotech experts and trade industry representatives to target countries for discussions with high-profile politicians and agricultural officials.

Truthout recently reported on front groups supported by the US government, philanthropic foundations and companies like Monsanto that are working to introduce pro-biotechnology policy initiatives and GE crops in developing African countries, and several cables released this week confirm that American diplomats have promoted biotech agriculture to countries likeTunisia, South Africa and Mozambique.

Cables detail US efforts to influence the biotech policies of developed countries such as Egypt and Turkey, but France continues to stand out as a high-profile target.

In a 2007 cable, the US embassy in Paris reported on a meeting among US diplomats and representatives from Monsanto, DuPont and Dow-Agro-sciences. The companies were concerned about a movement of French farmers, who were vandalizing GE crop farms at the time, and suggested diplomatic angles for speeding up EU approvals of GE Crops.

In 2008 cable describing a “rancorous” debate within the French Parliament over proposed biotech legislation, Craig Stapleton, the former US ambassador to France under the Bush administration, included an update on MON-810, a Monsanto corn variety banned in France.

Stapleton wrote that French officials “expect retaliation via the World Trade Organization” for upholding the ban on MON-810 and stalling the French GE crop approval process. “There is nothing to be gained in France from delaying retaliation,” Stapleton wrote.

Tough regulations and bans on GE crops can deal hefty blows to US exports. About 94 percent of soybeans, 72 percent of corn and 73 percent of the cotton grown in the US now use GE-tolerate herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. 

A 2007 cable, for example, reports that the French ban on MON-810 could cost the US $30 million to $50 million in exports.

In a 2007 cable obtained by Truthout in January, Stapleton threatened “moving to retaliate” against France for banning MON-810. Several other European countries, including Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, have also placed bans on MON-810 in recent years. MON-810 is engineered to excrete the Bt toxin, which kills some insect pests.

Originally published on Truthout

On the 21st of September the Franco-Belgian fast-food chain Quick took the plunge, selling a certified organic burger– with Swiss cheese and locally-raised meat– for a cost of 2.50 euros each, 43 percent more than the traditional Quick burger. The burger will be available for eight weeks to measure demand. The company claims that it has worked for a year to procure the quantity of organic meat needed to fulfill the eight weeks of service. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the organic patty and onions are cut square instead of round, differentiating it from the non-organic version.

It is not surprising that the French market is moving in this direction. The government recently announced an additional six million euros would go towards helping farmers transition to certified organic agriculture, which can be costly for the farmer and takes five years in France. The French government has also set a goal of converting 20% of French agriculture to organic by 2020. It seems fast-food restaurants are seeing the handwriting on the wall.

While fast-food chains like Chipotle have staked their reputation on buying antibiotic and hormone-free meat stateside, and locally based fast-food chains like BurgerVille in the Pacific Northwest have focused on local, sustainable food and practices, larger chains like McDonald’s and Burger King have yet to acknowledge this market in any significant way. If American fast-food chains went organic, would you be more likely to buy their food? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.

For a President who prefers canned vegetables to fresh, it probably wasn’t hard for George W. Bush to decide last week to make it impossible for Americans to buy Roquefort. In a last ditch effort to stick it to the French, a 300% tariff was added to the cheese, making it prohibitively expensive. This move only added to the animosity between the two countries that began after the French refused to go to war in Iraq and America responded with Operation Freedom Fries. But the reasoning behind the move was more astonishing: to punish the E.U. for their continued ban on our growth hormone-treated beef.

Aside from the fact that I agree with the French (full disclosure: my husband, Yann, is French), this was a pathetic effort on Bush’s part.  I am so glad that somewhere in the world a government has enough sense to 1.) say no to America when necessary, and 2.) stand up for their food system.  Accepting meat treated with hormones is completely counter to French eating habits, and should the government do so, people would take to the streets like they did in South Korea for this very reason last spring.

This all hit home recently when I went into a local butcher in the Lower East Side of Manhattan with Yann, and being the dutiful (and concerned) husband of a food policy writer, he asked the Ukrainian butcher about the origin of his pigs. Were they raised on a pasture? He wanted to know.  The butcher cocked his head and repeated what he had just told us, that there were two types of ham, a honey-glazed ham, and a country-style ham. “But where do they come from,” Yann persisted, “Did they eat grain?” I knew this was an exercise in futility, but I was happy that it was bringing the point home for my Frenchman, who has had erstwhile idealistic perceptions of how we view food in the U.S. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” the butcher said, shaking his head. The woman next to us translated, and the butcher shrugged his shoulders, giving us a look of confusion as to why we’d even be asking.

When we left the shop, my husband expressed how stunned he was – in France any butcher could tell you the farmer’s name, the area in France where the animal was raised, what it ate and how old it was when it was killed (not to mention sell you any and every part of the animal). This was just a part of feeding the public safely. But in America we are so removed from our food system, and things have gotten so bad behind the scenes (Did you know that genetically engineered meat doesn’t have to be labeled thanks to lobbying from Big Ag?) that when we read books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma or watch the film King Corn we are so shocked and appalled that we either become food policy writers, or we look away in disgust.

The Obama Administration will surely reinstate friendlier relations with the French (who would have voted for Obama nine out of ten times had they been given the chance), starting with discontinuing the tax on Roquefort, for which the United States makes up only 2% of sales. And perhaps in our growing curiosity about food, we will come to appreciate the sheep cheese — cave-aged in a 1,000-year old tradition — which is protected from imitators by the French government.

But it is my profound hope that during this time of greater transparency, when we are more willing than ever to look on and find out where our food is coming from, that we can begin to roll back the other trespasses that have been taking place since President Reagan ripped the solar panels off the White House roof: let’s begin by telling farmers to get smaller instead of bigger and encourage them to diversify their crops, while giving incentives and land access to a new batch of producers; and meanwhile we should encourage consumers to eat by the seasons and grow some of their own produce on their lawn; and then let’s introduce the two to each other – because knowing your farmer is the best safety mechanism in a system that has grown to big to manage.

Photo: Nicolas DARQUE