GM Crops: A Global Perspective
Despite the controversy surrounding genetically modified (GM) crops Britain is planning to spend £140m on supporting genetically modified crops for the world's poorest nations. The government has long supported high-tech food for Africa as a means of reducing poverty and gaining acceptance for GM foods in Britain. To date Britain has refused to allow any of the controversial foods to be grown commercially in the UK. Should we grow GM foods anywhere on Our Future Planet? What are the planetary implications of GM foods?
There are two main types of GM crops those resistant to herbicides and those resistant to pests. People object to GM technology for several reasons for example, genes used to modify crops could escape into wild plants, creating "superweeds" that are highly resistant to pests, or alter plants in other ways that might cause damage to the environment. GM crops themselves might prove to be harmful to either wildlife or the people who eat the crops. There are also concerns about the accidental contamination of organic produce, which markets itself as GM-free.
In his book Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods Jeffrey Smith describes some of the dangers of GM foods.
Foreign genes have been found to jump to human gut bacteria in just one meal of a GM soy burger and soy milkshake. This raises potentially serious health questions. Murray Lumpkin, M.D., then director the FDA’s Division of Anti-infective Drug Products, warned: “It would be a serious health hazard to introduce a gene that codes for antibiotic resistance into the normal flora of the general population.”
A promoter is added to the GM plant to keep the foreign genes switched on. Research shows that the promoter is active in animal genes and transfers from food to internal organs. According to Geneticist Dr. Joe Cummins, a promoter can have the same impact as a heavy dose of gamma radiation and can destabilize DNA and chromosomes thereby leading to cancer.
The UK government is committed to dramatically increasing spending on high-tech agriculture in the next five years, much of which will be on GM crop research. Bio-fortified crops, containing added vitamins, will receive £80m of development money, £60m will go on researching drought-resistant maize for the developing world principally Africa and a further £24m will be spent on pest resistance. Furthermore, support for an international network of GM crop research stations, in collaboration with GM companies, will be doubled. The UK will also fund research by the GM crop firm Syngenta, which is developing a strain of vitamin A enriched rice.
A new report just published by GM Freeze, set up by Friends of the Earth and others, calls for a moratorium on GM, arguing that Britain's investment is sending African farming "down a blind alley". The report has found that there is little transparency in how research institutions in receipt of UK grants spend the money. Many institutions, which are part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), are given core funding to spend as they wish, without the need to account for how it is spent or to demonstrate that the GM crops will improve the lives of poor farmers.
The GM Freeze report goes on to look at two projects in particular which seek to increase the intensity of farming in Africa using fossil-fuels based fertilizers and pesticides and hybrid/GM seeds. Both projects involve partnerships with biotech and agro-chemical corporations, including Monsanto and Bayer. The impacts of intensive farming on Africa’s fragile environment and public health have not been adequately assessed by DFID, says the report. The rising costs of fertilizers, pesticides, seeds and other farm inputs make them unaffordable for many small farmers.
Commenting on their findings Pete Riley, Campaign Director of GM Freeze, said:
“Imposing an intensive farming model on Africa including GM would be a disaster. Intensive farming has massive environmental and human costs. Agro-ecological approaches using local resources and knowledge is the way forward.”
What about other parts of the world? GM crops are grown by more than 10 million farmers on 252m acres in 22 countries. Spain is the biggest grower in Europe, but there are also significant amounts of crops grown in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Portugal. Around the world, the US, Argentina, Canada and Brazil plant the most, with various amounts grown in China, Australia, Bulgaria, Colombia, Honduras, India, Mexico, South Africa and Uruguay. The USA grows 50% of the worlds GM crops. There has been a rapid increase in GM crop planting in the developing world and 15 countries now have GM crops e.g. Egypt has biotech maize, Burkino Faso has cotton and Bolivia has Soya Beans.
More than 90% of GM crops worldwide are produced by Monsanto. Companies such as Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, Dow and BASF make the rest. The four main commercial crops grown are soya beans, maize, cotton and oilseed rape. The companies point out there has been a large take-up of GM crops in poorer countries, and regularly claim that GM crops address many of the problems that blight farmers there. However, most GM crops are grown for animal food, and massive amounts grown in countries such as Argentina are exported, sometimes at the expense of local food production.
It is perhaps too soon to see the long term global effects of GM crops on human health, the environment and wildlife but once the crops are planted they cannot be taken back as their genes will have spread into the global environment. Are there other ways forward to help feed the planet? Surely it is better to help farmers increase their yields by conventional methods rather than investing in GM foods which are controversial due to the unknown heath risks to humans and effects on wildlife and the environment. What are your thoughts? Have your say. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Add your comment below. Have your say. We welcome your thoughts and proposals. Add your comment below. Not a Citizen? Sign up
