Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Heads Monsanto Wins, Tails We Lose; The Genetically Modified Food Gamble
by Robert Weissman
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/19/7769/

There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little 
potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.

Last month, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech 
Applications (ISAAA), a pro-biotech nonprofit, released a report highlighting 
the proliferation of genetically modified crops. According to ISAAA, biotech 
crop area grew 12 percent, or 12. 3 million hectares, to reach 114. 3 million 
hectares in 2007, the second highest area increase in the past five years.

For the biotech backers, this is cause to celebrate. They claim that biotech 
helps farmers. They say it promises to reduce hunger and poverty in 
developing countries.”If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals 
(MDGs) of cutting hunger and poverty in half by 2015,” says Clive James, 
ISAAA founder and the author the just-released report, “biotech crops must 
play an even bigger role in the next decade.”

In fact, existing genetically modified crops are hurting small farmers and 
failing to deliver increased food supply — and posing enormous, largely 
unknown risks to people and the planet.

For all of the industry hype around biotech products, virtually all planted 
genetically modified seed is for only four products — soy, corn, cotton and 
canola — with just two engineered traits. Most of the crops are engineered to 
be resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide sold by Monsanto under the 
brand-name Round-up (these biotech seeds are known as RoundUp-Ready). Others 
are engineered to include a naturally occurring pesticide, Bt.

Most of the genetically modified crops in developing countries are soy, says 
Bill Freese, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety and 
co-author of “Who Benefits from GM Crops,” a report issued at the same time 
as ISAAA’s release. These crops are exported to rich countries, primarily as 
animal feed. They do absolutely nothing to supply food to the hungry.

As used in developing countries, biotech crops are shifting power away from 
small, poor farmers desperately trying to eke out livelihoods and maintain 
their land tenure.

Glyphosate-resistance is supposed to enable earlier and less frequent 
spraying, but, concludes “Who Benefits from GM Crops,” these biotech seeds 
“allow farmers to spray a particular herbicide more frequently and 
indiscriminately without fear of damaging the crop.” This requires 
expenditures beyond the means of small farmers — but reduces labor costs, a 
major benefit for industrial farms.

ISAAA contends that Bt planting in India and China has substantially reduced 
insecticide spraying, which it advances as the primary benefit of biotech 
crops.

Bt crops may offer initial reductions in required spraying, says Freese, but 
Bt is only effective against some pests, meaning farmers may have to use 
pesticides to prevent other insects from eating their crops. Focusing on a 
district in Punjab, “Who Benefits from GM Crops” shows how secondary pest 
problems have offset whatever gains Bt crops might offer.

Freese also notes that evidence is starting to come in to support 
longstanding fears that genetically engineering the Bt trait into crops would 
give rise to Bt-resistant pests.

The biotech seeds are themselves expensive, and must be purchased anew every 
year. Industry leader Monsanto is infamous for suing farmers for the age-old 
practice of saving seeds, and holds that it is illegal for farmers even to 
save genetically engineered seeds that have blown onto their fields from 
neighboring farms.”That has nothing to do with feeding the hungry,” or 
helping the poorest of the poor, says Hope Shand, research director for the 
ETC Group, an ardent biotech opponent. It is, to say the least, not exactly a 
farmer-friendly approach.

Although the industry and its allies tout the benefits that biotech may yield 
someday for the poor, “we have yet to see genetically modified food that is 
cheaper, more nutritious or tastes better,” says Shand. “Biotech seeds have 
not been shown to be scientifically or socially useful,” although they have 
been useful for the profit-driven interests of Monsanto, she says.

Freese notes that the industry has been promising gains for the poor for a 
decade and a half — but hasn’t delivered. Products in the pipeline won’t 
change that, he says, with the industry focused on introducing new herbicide 
resistant seeds.

The evidence on yields for the biotech crops is ambiguous, but there is good 
reason to believe yields have actually dropped. ISAAA’s Clive James says that 
Bt crops in India and China have improved yields somewhat. “Who Benefits from 
GM Crops” carefully reviews this claim, and offers a convincing rebuttal. The 
report emphasizes the multiple factors that affect yield, and notes that Bt 
and Roundup-Ready seeds alike are not engineered to improve yield per se, 
just to protect against certain predators or for resistance to herbicide 
spraying.

Beyond the social disaster of contributing to land concentration and 
displacement of small farmers, a range of serious ecological and 
sustainability problems with biotech crops is already emerging — even though 
the biotech crop experiment remains quite new.

Strong evidence of pesticide resistance is rapidly accumulating, details “Who 
Benefits from GM Crops,” meaning that farmers will have to spray more and 
more chemicals to less and less effect. Pesticide use is rising rapidly in 
biotech-heavy countries. In the heaviest user of biotech seeds — the United 
States, which has half of all biotech seed planting — glyphosate-resistant 
weeds are proliferating. Glyphosate use in the United States rose by 15 times 
from 1994 to 2005, according to “Who Benefits from GM Crops,” and use of 
other and more toxic herbicides is rapidly rising. The U.S. experience likely 
foreshadows what is to come for other countries more recently adopting 
biotech crops.

Seed diversity is dropping, as Monsanto and its allies aim to eliminate seed 
saving, and development of new crop varieties is slowing. Contamination from 
neighboring fields using genetically modified seeds can destroy farmers’ 
ability to maintain biotech-free crops. Reliance on a narrow range of seed 
varieties makes the food system very vulnerable, especially because of the 
visible problems with the biotech seeds now in such widespread use.

For all the uncertainties about the long-term effects of biotech crops and 
food, one might imagine that there were huge, identifiable short-term 
benefits. But one would be wrong.

Instead, a narrowly based industry has managed to impose a risky technology 
with short-term negatives and potentially dramatic downsides.

But while it is true, as ISAAA happily reports, that biotech planting is 
rapidly growing, it remains heavily concentrated in just a few countries: the 
United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and China.

Europe and most of the developing world continue to resist Monsanto’s seed 
imperialism. The industry and its allies decry this stand as a senseless 
response to fear-mongering. It actually reflects a rational assessment of 
demonstrated costs and benefits — and an appreciation for real but 
incalculable risks of toying with the very nature of nature.

Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational 
Monitor, and director of Essential Action.