Biotech Snake Oil: A Quack Cure for Hunger

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From GM Watch

Biotech Snake Oil: A Quack Cure for Hunger

by Bill Freese

Multinational Monitor Vol. 29 No. 2, Sep-Oct 2008

_http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/092008/freese.html_

(http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/092008/freese.html)

 

Rising global food prices reached a flash point this spring, sparking food

riots in over a dozen countries. Mexican tortillas have quadrupled in price;

Haiti's prime minister was ousted amid rice riots; African countries were

especially hard hit. According to the World Bank, global food prices have risen

a

shocking 83 percent over the past three years. And for the world's poor,

high prices mean hunger.

 

The global food crisis has many causes, but according to the biotechnology

industry, there's a simple solution - genetically modified, or biotech, crops.

Biotech multinationals have been in media blitz mode ever since the food

crisis first made headlines, touting miracle crops that will purportedly

increase yields, tolerate droughts, grow in saline soils, and be chockfull of

nutrients, to boot.

 

" If we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of cutting hunger and

poverty in half by 2015, " says Clive James, founder of the International

Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), an

organization whose funders include all the major biotech companies, " biotech

crops must

play an even bigger role in the next decade. "

 

Not everyone is convinced. In fact, the UN and World Bank recently completed

an unprecedentedly broad scientific assessment of world agriculture, the

International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for

Development (IAASTD), which concluded that biotech crops have very little

potential to alleviate poverty and hunger. This four-year effort, which engaged

some 400 experts from multiple disciplines, originally included industry

representatives. Just three months before the final report was released,

however,

Monsanto, Syngenta and chemical giant BASF pulled out of the process, miffed

by the poor marks given their favorite technology. This withdrawal upset even

the industry-friendly journal Nature, which chided the companies in an

editorial entitled, " Deserting the Hungry? "

 

Serving The Wealthy

 

Genetic engineering involves the laboratory-based transfer of DNA derived

from bacteria, viruses or virtually any living organism into plants to endow

them with a desired trait. As implemented by biotechnology firms, critics say

genetic engineering has trod the well-worn path of previous innovations of

industrial agriculture - serving wealthier farmers growing commodity crops in

huge monocultures by saving labor through the use of expensive inputs.

 

Biotech proponents insist genetically modified (GM) seeds are delivering

results for farmers. " Already in its first 12 years, this technology has made a

significant impact by lifting the incomes of farmers, " says James.

 

But genetically modified crops are heavily concentrated in a handful of

countries with industrialized, export-oriented agricultural sectors. Nearly 90

percent of biotech acres in 2007 were found in just six countries of North and

South America, with the United States, Argentina and Brazil accounting for 80

percent. For most other countries, including India and China, biotech crops

account for 3 percent or less of total harvested crop area.

 

Commercialized GM crops are confined to soybeans, corn, cotton and canola.

Soybeans and corn predominate, and are used mainly to feed animals or fuel

cars in rich nations. For instance, Argentina and Brazil export the great

majority of their soybeans as livestock feed, mainly to Europe and Japan, while

more than three fourths of the U.S. corn crop is either fed to animals or used

to generate ethanol for automobiles. Expanding soybean monocultures in South

America are displacing small farmers, who grow food crops for local

consumption, and thus contribute to food insecurity, especially in Argentina and

Paraguay. The only other commercial GM crops are papaya and squash, both grown

on

miniscule acreage.

 

Most revealing, however, is what the biotech industry has engineered these

crops for. Hype and promises of future innovations notwithstanding, there is

not a single commercial GM crop with increased yield, drought-tolerance,

salt-tolerance, enhanced nutrition or other attractive-sounding traits touted

by

the industry. Disease-resistant GM crops are practically non-existent.

 

" We have yet to see genetically modified food that is cheaper, more

nutritious or tastes better, " says Hope Shand, research director for the

Ontario-based ETC Group. " Biotech seeds have not been shown to be scientifically

or

socially useful. "

 

The industry's own figures reveal that GM crops incorporate one or both of

just two " traits " - herbicide tolerance and insect resistance.

Insect-resistant cotton and corn produce their own " built-in " insecticide to

protect against

certain, but far from all, insect pests. Herbicide-tolerant crops are

engineered to withstand direct application of an herbicide to kill nearby

weeds.

These crops predominate, with 82 percent of global biotech crop acreage.

 

Herbicide-tolerant crops (mainly soybeans) are popular with larger farmers

because they simplify and reduce labor needs for weed control. They have thus

helped facilitate the worldwide trend of consolidating farmland into fewer,

ever bigger farms, like Argentina's huge soybean plantations. According to a

2004 study by Charles Benbrook, former executive director of the Board on

Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences, herbicide-tolerant crops have

also led to a substantial increase in pesticide use. Benbrook's study found

that adoption of herbicide-tolerant crops in the United States increased

weed-killer use by 138 million pounds from 1996 to 2004 (while insect-resistant

crops reduced insecticide use by just 16 million pounds over the same period).

 

The vast majority of herbicide-tolerant crops are Monsanto's " Roundup Ready "

varieties, tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate, which is sold under the

brand-name Roundup. The dramatic rise in glyphosate use associated with Roundup

Ready crops has spawned an epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds, just as

bacteria evolve resistance to an overused antibiotic. Farmers respond to

resistant weeds by upping the dose of glyphosate and by using greater quantities

of

other herbicides, such as the probable carcinogen 2,4-D (a component of Agent

Orange) and the endocrine-disrupting weed killer atrazine, recently banned

in the European Union. Glyphosate-resistant weeds and rising herbicide use are

becoming serious problems in the United States, Argentina and Brazil.

 

" Roundup continues to be the cornerstone of weed management for farms today

and provides a lot of value to farmers, " responds Darren Wallis, a Monsanto

spokesperson. " We have some online tools to help farmers manage any weed

control issues that they might have. There have been some documented cases of

weed

resistance, but Roundup continues to control hundreds of weeds very

effectively. "

 

Critics retort that resistant weeds are spreading despite Monsanto's

efforts, and that a technology often promoted as moving agriculture beyond the

era

of chemicals has in fact increased chemical dependency and accelerated the

pesticide treadmill of industrial agriculture. And, of course, expensive inputs

like herbicides (the price of glyphosate has doubled over the past year) are

beyond the means of most poor farmers.

 

What about yield and profitability? The most widely cultivated biotech crop,

Roundup Ready soybeans, actually suffers from a 5-10 percent lower yield

versus conventional varieties, according to a University of Nebraska study, due

to both adverse effects of glyphosate on the soybean's nutrient uptakes, as

well as unintended effects of the genetic engineering process used to create

the plant. Unintended, yield-lowering effects are a serious though

little-acknowledged technical obstacle of genetic engineering, and are one of

several

factors foiling efforts to develop viable GM crops with drought-tolerance,

disease-resistance and other traits.

 

Monsanto says yield problems occurred only in the first year Roundup Ready

soy was introduced, and that initial problems have been cured. " The first year

we came out with Roundup Ready soybeans, there was a slight yield drag, but

we improved the [seed] in subsequent years, " says Brad Mitchell, Monsanto

spokesperson.

 

Critics dispute this assertion, citing a 2007 study by Kansas State

University which found that Roundup Ready soybean yields continue to lag behind

those

of conventional varieties.

 

Clive James of ISAAA points to the Asian experience with GM cotton, where he

says small farmers are benefiting from biotech. More than 7 million farmers

- representing some of the poorest in China - are seeing yields rise by 10

percent and pesticide use decline by half, he says. Farmer income is rising by

approximately $220 a year, according to James.

 

But reviews of the Asian experience with GM cotton suggest that yield

benefits are due more to good weather and other factors, not the use of biotech

crops, and that GM cotton engineered for the shorter growing season in the U.S.

sometimes fails to ward off targeted pests in India's longer growing season.

It is true that insect resistant crops can reduce yield losses when

infestation with targeted pests is severe. However, because cotton is afflicted

with

so many pests not killed by the built-in insecticide, biotech cotton farmers

in India, China and elsewhere often apply as much chemical insecticide as

growers of conventional cotton. But because they have paid up to four times as

much for the biotech seed as they would for conventional seed, they often end

up falling deeper into debt. Debt is an overriding problem among small farmers

in developing countries, and any policies or technologies that deepen farmer

debt have drastic consequences. Each year, hundreds of cotton far! mers in

India alone commit suicide from despair over insurmountable debts.

 

Even the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has found no economic benefit

to farmers from growing GM crops in most situations.

 

Seed Servitude

 

The agricultural biotechnology industry represents an historic merger of two

distinct sectors - agrichemicals and seeds. In the 1990s, the world's

largest pesticide makers - companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer and Syngenta

-

began buying up the world's seed firms. These four biotech giants now control

41 percent of the world's commercial seed supply. Two factors drove this

buying spree: the new technology of genetic engineering and the issuance of the

first patents on seeds in the 1980s. Biotech firms saw that they could employ

genetic engineering to develop herbicide-tolerant crops to exploit " synergies "

between their seed and pesticide divisions. Seed patents enable owners to

exert monopoly control over seeds, in part by enabling biotech firms to prevent

farmers from saving seeds.

 

While patents on biotech seeds normally apply to inserted genes (or methods

for introducing the gene), courts have interpreted these " gene patents " as

granting biotech/seed firms comprehensive rights to the seeds that contain

them. One consequence is that a farmer can be held liable for patent

infringement

even if the patented gene/plant appears in his fields through no fault of

his own (e.g. cross-pollination or seed dispersal). Another consequence is that

farmers can be sued for patent infringement - as well as for infringing

sales contracts - if they save and replant seeds from their harvest, so-called

" second-generation " seeds.

 

In the United States, industry leader Monsanto has pursued thousands of

farmers for allegedly saving and replanting its patented Roundup Ready soybean

seeds. An analysis by the Center for Food Safety documented court-imposed

payments of more than $21 million from farmers to Monsanto for alleged patent

infringement. However, when one includes the much greater number of pre-trial

settlements, the total jumps to more than $85 million, collected from several

thousand farmers.

 

Spurred on by the biotech multinationals, the U.S. and European governments

are pressuring developing nations to adopt similar gene and seed patenting

laws. This effort is being pursued through the World Trade Organization, which

requires member nations to establish patent-style regimes for plants, as well

as through bilateral trade agreements. Since an estimated 80 percent to 90

percent of seeds planted in poorer nations are produced on-farm (that is, they

are saved from previous crops), the revenue to be gained from elimination of

seed-saving in connection with the introduction of GM crops is considerable

- conservatively estimated at tens of billions of dollars. If biotech/seed

firms have their way, what farmer advocates call the " seed servitude " of U.S.

farmers could soon become a global condition.

 

Biotech firms also have so-called Terminator and Traitor technologies

waiting in the wings. Terminator is a genetic manipulation that renders

harvested

seed sterile, and represents a biological means to achieve the same end as

patents: elimination of seed-saving. Traitor technology is similar, except that

the second-generation seed sterility can be reversed upon application of a

proprietary chemical. In this scenario, farmers would be allowed to save seed,

but would have to purchase and apply a chemical to bring them back to life.

While international outrage has thus far blocked deployment of Terminator,

Monsanto recently purchased the seed company (Delta and Pine Land) that holds

several major patents on the technology (together with the USDA). And while

Monsanto has " pledged " not to deploy Terminator, the pledge is revocable at any

time.

 

As the biotech multinationals tighten their stranglehold on the world's seed

supply, farmers' choices are diminishing, and high-quality conventional

seeds are rapidly disappearing from the marketplace. Biotech seeds presently

cost

two- to four-times as much as conventional varieties, or more. The price

ratchets up with each new " trait " that is introduced. Seeds with one trait were

once the norm, but are rapidly being replaced with two- and three-trait

versions. As Monsanto put it in a presentation to investors, its overriding

goal

is " trait penetration " and investment in " penetration of

higher-[profit-]margin traits. " Monsanto and Dow recently announced plans to

introduce GM corn

with eight different traits (six insecticides and tolerance to two different

herbicides). Farmers who want more affordable conventional seed, or even

biotech

seed with just one or two traits, may soon be out of luck. As University of

Kentucky agronomist Chad Lee puts it: " The cost of corn seed keeps! getting

higher and there doesn't appear to be a stopping point in sight. " While " trait

penetration " is now chiefly a U.S. phenomenon, it is likely to be pursued

throughout the world wherever GM crops become prevalent.

 

The Many Uses of Biotechnology

 

The tremendous hype surrounding biotech crops as a response to the food

crisis does serve at least two purposes: as a " carrot " to persuade developing

nations to adopt strict patent-style regimes for plants; and to divert

attention

from the underlying causes of the food crisis.

 

In 1991, the U.S. government and Monsanto funded development of a

genetically modified virus-resistant sweet potato in collaboration with the

Kenyan

Agricultural Research Institute. Thirteen years later, the $6 million project

was

pronounced a dismal failure - the GM sweet potato did not resist the

targeted virus, and yields were poor. However, it did help foster an atmosphere

enabling introduction of other GM crops, and likely helped persuade Kenyan

legislators to pass the Industrial Property Act in 2001, which according to

patent

expert Robert Lettington " may actually place very little restriction on the

patenting of life forms at all. " While the Kenyan project failed, a

conventional breeding program in neighboring Uganda successfully bred a

high-yielding,

virus-resistant sweet potato in just a few years at a fraction of the cost.

Many other biotech crop projects have also failed, including GM potatoes and

tomatoes in Egypt, and GM corn and cotton in Indonesia.

 

Biotech mania has also diverted attention from the underlying social causes

of the food crisis, which include diversion of food crops to make biofuels,

and " trade liberalization " policies that have crippled developing country

agriculture and made these nations dependent on subsidized surpluses from rich

nations. " The structural causes " of the food crisis, says Anuradha Mittal,

executive director of the Oakland Institute, " lie in policies of international

financial institutions over the last 20 to 30 years, which have made developing

countries so vulnerable in the first place. " International Monetary Fund

(IMF) and World Bank policies, she says, " eroded state and international

investment in agriculture, " as well as farmer support mechanisms such as state

grain

marketing agencies and subsidized agricultural services.

 

The IMF and World Bank also " promoted cash crops instead of domestic

production of food for domestic consumption. All of those policies have

basically

removed the principle of self-sufficiency. At the same time, you have had the

lowering of tariffs which has resulted in the dumping of cheap, subsidized

commodities from rich countries. With all of those policies, you find an

erosion

of the agricultural base of developing countries and their ability to feed

themselves, " says Mittal.

 

Eliminating agricultural self-sufficiency was an explicit objective of

rich-country policies. As Reagan's agriculture secretary John Block expressed

it

with uncharacteristic candor in 1986: " The idea that developing countries

should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better

ensure their food security by relying on U.S. agricultural products, which are

available in most cases at lower cost. "

 

The global food crisis underscores the bankruptcy of such policies. The

flood of subsidized U.S. corn into Mexico facilitated by NAFTA has thrown at

least 1.3 million Mexican farmers out of work. Haiti and the Philippines, once

nearly self-sufficient in rice production, are now among the world's largest

rice importers. Africa, a net food exporter in the 1960s, now imports 25

percent of its food. With the sharp rise in international grain prices, the

reduced

ability of poor nations to feed themselves presages increased hunger and

poverty for many years to come. In fact, the food crisis recently prompted

University of Minnesota food experts C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer to

double

their projection of the number of the world's hungry by the year 2025, from

625 million to 1.2 billion. The UN-World Bank IAASTD report advocates " food

sovereignty, " defined as " the right of peoples and sovereign states to

democratically determine their own agriculture and food policies. "

 

True Solutions

 

Another IAASTD recommendation is promotion of agroecological farming

techniques suited to small farmers. Ever since the Green Revolution, the

agricultural development establishment has focused primarily on high-tech crop

breeding

and expensive inputs (e.g. fertilizers, pesticides and " improved seeds " ).

These input-centered schemes offer potential market opportunities to

multinational agribusinesses, but have generally favored wealthier growers over

small

farmers. In contrast, agroecology minimizes inputs, and relies instead on

innovative cultivation and pest control practices to increase food production. A

2001 review of 200 developing country agricultural projects involving a switch

to agroecological techniques, conducted by University of Essex researchers,

found an average yield gain of 93 percent.

 

Control of insect pests through the introduction of natural predators has

also achieved enormous success at low cost in Africa. One striking example is

the introduction of insect predators to control a devastating cassava pest,

which averted mass hunger in Africa in the

1980s and 1990s. A new dryland rice farming technique called the System of

Rice Intensification dramatically increases yield, and is spreading rapidly in

rice-growing nations, despite dismissal by the agricultural development

establishment. Besides being low cost, agro-ecological techniques typically

benefit smaller farmers.

 

GM Reality Check

 

The tremendous hype surrounding biotechnology has obscured some basic facts.

Most GM crops feed animals or fuel cars in rich nations; are engineered for

use with expensive weed killers to save labor; and are grown by larger

farmers in industrial monocultures for export.

 

" GM crops have nothing to do with feeding hungry people and nothing to do

with sustainability, " says Shand. " With the consolidation of the seed industry,

seed companies' primary objective is to increase profits by restricting

farmers' reliance on saved seeds. "

 

Bill Freese is science policy analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Center

for Food Safety, a nonprofit group that supports sustainable agriculture and

opposes harmful food production technologies.

 

 

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