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GETTING THE ARGUMENT INTO PERSPECTIVE
Without doubt GM technology has potential - most notably the potential to reduce (and hopefully almost eliminate) the pesticide/insecticide/fungicide and artificial fertiliser farming practices that have evolved since World War II.
Many scientists now argue that their continued use is unsustainable - contaminating food and groundwater, causing erosion, and, in the UK, upsetting biodiversity.
Unfortunately however, the debate so far has assumed that modern farming practice is doing a good job. “
"Instead of comparing GM with monoculture, they’re comparing it with some rosy-eyed natural system that doesn’t exist – and couldn’t exist if we want to feed the world," says Harry Griffin of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh.
As part of the team that created Dolly, the world’s first cloned sheep, Griffin has thought carefully about the divide in public opinion between GM pharmaceuticals (pro) and GM food (against). As he says, it all comes down to choice. "With medicine you’re not obliging people to take that medicine – at least you have choice."
The fact is, contemporary farming methods are biologically damaging and in the long term, unsustainable.
Driven mainly by massive supermarket groups, the food prices – and farmers’ margins – have dropped dramatically. In the 50s, 40% of the household budget went on food. Now it’s down to 11 or 12% with most of the cost in processing. In the UK we don’t need cheaper meat. We need to know it’s coming from an [animal and plant]-friendly source. (36)
Explains Dr Julian Schroeder, Bt crops put less pressure on the environment. "There in a commonality there between the concerns of industry and health." (37)
Even Brian Johnson agrees that herbicide-tolerant GM maize is probably going to be better than using atrazine "which is a nasty, persistent herbicide which stops all weeds germinating, persists in the soil for 18 months then leaches into the water supply. It is also dangerous to farmers."
Phil Dale of the John Innes Centre suggests there are several things worse than GM foods, including hormone-induced milk and meat production. "And," he points out, "if we don’t accept these products there’s the risk of a trade war."
"One of the things that concerns me as a scientist is the enormous impact of chemicals," he continues. "In the UK 30,000 tons of sprays are dropped into the environment every year. It makes sense to try and reduce that…We also use [sprays] to reduce the sprouting of potato tubers – reducing that would be top of my list. Another thing would be to reduce the use of artificial fertiliser…nitrates are leeching into the water courses and drinking water seems to be a problem."
Julian Schroeder poses a very hands-on question: "Would you rather eat a Bt ear of corn which has one added protein in its genetic makeup, or one that has been sprayed with eight different pesticides - such toxic stuff that you need to wash your hands after peeling that ear of corn? And remember, Bt toxins have been researched a lot. Their toxins are very specific to certain insect families. No toxicity has been found in animals." (38)
Professor Parker talks about how in Antarctica, one of the least-polluted places on earth, they’ve found DDT residues – and about a London colleague who asked him to take over the rearing of some white butterfly caterpillars because he couldn’t keep any alive on cabbages bought from the supermarket – presumably because they were too toxic. (39)
Then there is the need to feed an ever-expanding world. Right now, one billion people go to sleep hungry and there are 40,000 hunger-related deaths every day.
Within two generations the world will need twice as much food as we produce today. (40) Even if current distribution problems (which mean that people starve when there is enough food) were solved, by 2020, when the population hits 8 billion, half the people will not have enough water to grow their own food. (41)
And GM – the knowledge revolution - could be the next big breakthrough.
Listen to Florence Wambugu, "The critics of biotechnology claim that Africa has no chance to benefit from biotechnology, and that Africa will be a dumping ground or will be exploited by multinationals. On the contrary, small-scale farmers have benefited by using hybrid seeds from local and multinational companies…There is every reason to believe they will also benefit from the crop-protection transgenic techniques already in the pipeline for banana, such as sigatoka, the disease-resistant transgenic variety now ready for field trials.
"The African continent, more than any other, urgently needs agricultural biotechnology, to improve food production…There is the potential to double African crop production if viral diseases are controlled using transgenic technology.
"The criticism of agribiotech products in Europe is based on socioeconomic issues, and not food safety issues, and no evidence so far justifies the opinion of some in Europe that Africa should be excluded from transgenic crops. Africans can speak for themselves." (42)
Footnotes:
Read the rest of this report:
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