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Genetically modified crops will not help the developing world
(Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- Colin Tudge commentary in The Guardian, 02/20/04:
As revealed in this week's leaked minutes, the government's commitment to GM
crops is unswerving. Revealed once more, too, is its arrogance; for it
acknowledges public resistance but hopes that "opposition might eventually
be worn down by solid, authoritative scientific argument". Most worrying of
all, though, is the truly astonishing ignorance of people in high places.
The arguments for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that have been
dinned into us for 15 years are based on an almost sublime misreading of the
world's food problems. Indeed, GMOs are part of a political and economic
trend that is threatening all humanity.
The crucial claim for GM crops is that they are necessary. They can
out-yield traditional varieties, and can be made especially rich in protein
and vitamins. The world's population is rising fast and without GM, the
story has it, famine and increasing deficiency are inevitable. To oppose
their development is to be effete to the point of wickedness.
But this is not the whole picture. The world population stands at 6 billion,
and the UN says it will reach 10 billion by 2050 - but then should level
out. Present productivity could be doubled by improving traditional breeding
and husbandry, so whatever the virtues of GMOs, necessity is not among them.
Present-day deficiencies are almost never caused by an inability to produce
enough. Angola is a good example: it is always bordering on disaster, yet it
has two-and-a-half times the area of France and every kind of climate, and
only 12.5 million people. Its farmers are highly accomplished. Famines
result not from inability but from the civil war that raged for 30 years.
Behind the claim that GMOs are necessary lies a deep - and racist - failure
to appreciate traditional farming. It's assumed that farmers of the
developing world, with their small farms, cannot cope. But all who have
looked closely know that traditional farmers are remarkably adept. Their
greatest need is for financial security: especially small loans with
regulated rates of interest. Technological innovation becomes pertinent only
when the traditional ways have been given half a chance, and shown to be
lacking.
But, say the enthusiasts, GMOs are part of the transition from
peasant-based, low-output subsistence to industrialised production based on
biotech, modern chemistry and machines. This is "progress". It "liberates"
the peasants, enabling them to migrate to the cities, to work for proper
wages. We see the transition in India, home (with China) to the world's
fastest-growing IT industry. Even more to the point, modern farming is
profitable, as traditional farming is not. The profits contribute to GDP,
and everyone benefits.
But extra productivity can be harmful, while profit is achieved primarily by
cutting labour, which is the most expensive input. In Britain and the US,
only about 1% of the labour force works on the land. In India, as in the
third world as a whole, it's 60%. If India farmed as the British do, 594
million people would be out of work. India's IT industry, flaunted as the
hope for the future, employs 60,000 - which falls short of what would be
required by 10,000 to one. To replace the status quo with hi-tech,
low-labour, industrialised agriculture would create social problems on a
scale that mercifully has not yet been seen. For the foreseeable future the
world's economy has to be primarily agrarian.
Ironically, one victim of the GM madness is science itself, for in principle
GMOs could be of real use. I saw an example in Brazil: GM papaya, designed
to resist local diseases. This is hi-tech as it should be: designed by the
people for the people. Contrast this with GM "golden rice", widely presented
as an unequivocal triumph. It is is fitted with a gene that produces
carotene, which in effect is vitamin A - lack of which causes blindness in
tens of millions of children.
But carotene is one of the commonest organic compounds in nature. People who
practise horticulture have no fear of vitamin A deficiency; and
traditionally, horticulture was universal. Modern, corporate farming -
monocultural rice, or maize grown for export as cattle feed - is a prime
cause of the deficiency that leads to blindness. It's all good for the GDP
but not for people.
The prime task for people seriously interested in humanity's food problems
is to help the world's small farmers. Technical up-grading is desirable, and
could include GM. But wholesale transition of the kind now in process, in
which GM has become a key player, is a disaster. GMOs have drawn attention
to the disaster, and for this perhaps we should be grateful. They are also
drawing attention to the shortcomings of government and of experts in
general. That needs urgent attention, too.
· Colin Tudge is the author of So Shall We Reap, an analysis of world food
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