A number of issues stand out in the report:
1 ) The cozy nature of the relationship between State Department officials and biotech companies. According to the report, "[o]ne strategy memo even included an 'advocacy toolkit' for diplomatic posts," and in Indonesia, in 2005, diplomats continued to lobby on behalf of Monsanto, the country's largest biotech firm -- with a total of 49 cables -- after the company paid a $1.5 million fine for bribing an Indonesian official "to relax or repeal an environmental rule governing the planting of GE crops." The same year, ambassadors to South Africa passed along information about job openings in the government's biotech regulatory agency to Pioneer and Monsanto, suggesting the companies "could advance 'qualified applicants' to fill the positions."
2 ) The questionable honesty of the State Department's messaging. For example, "[t]he State Department encouraged embassies to 'publicize that agricultural biotechnology can help address the food crisis," when evidence that it could was simply not there. In fact, a 2009 report from the Union of Concerned Scientists debunked the industry line that GE crops outperform conventional ones, and as herbicide-resistant weeds have become more common, GE crops yields have fallen. Besides, when it comes to hunger we know the problem has more to do with money than food, since we currently produce much more food than it would take to feed the entire world's population. Much of the world just can't afford it.
3 ) During those five years, the number of cables dealing with the promotion of biotechnology grew at a faster rate than overall cables. Politically, it makes sense that a nation with a major interest in GMOs specifically would ramp up efforts as the technology remained unpopular around the globe -- but as it remains controversial both stateside and abroad, it's hard not to wonder how much more these efforts have ramped up even further between 2009 and today.
But what really stands out in the cables quoted in the report is the length to which State Department officials were willing to go for American biotech companies. In a statement to Reuters, Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said, "It really gets down to twisting the arms of countries and working to undermine local democratic movements that may be opposed to biotech crops, and pressuring foreign governments to also reduce the oversight of biotech crops." Some of the State Department's messages use military language -- here's one of the most egregious, with regard to the European Union's reluctance to weaken its stringent biotech rules:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-hatfield/new-analysis-of-wikileaks_b_3306842.html
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