It is important, then, to decide if a GMO should be released into a particular environment and under what conditions. According to J. Rifking in N. Perlas (1994:71), because they are alive, genetically engineered products are inherently more unpredictable…in the way they interact with other living things in the environment. Consequently it is much more difficult to assess all the potential impacts that a biotechnical product might have on earth’s ecosystem. One example is the Pseudomas Syringae, bacteria which lives on the leaf surface of plants and secrets a protein substance which acts as a nucleus for the formation of ice crystal. Genetic engineers have deleted the gene connected with this substance in the hope of preventing frosts damage to agricultural crops. However, it has been demonstrated that P. Syringae performs a vital role in the triggering of rainfall, its replacement can create environmental damage by altering weather patterns (N. Perlas, 1994:34).
The debate about risks is wide, for example the Cairn Group argues that LMO’s (Living Modified Organism) are not intended for release into the environment and therefore cannot pose a threat to biological diversity. On the other hand, the health effects on human beings of food from GM crops depend on the specific content of the food itself and may have either potentially beneficial or occasional harmful effects on human health: for instance GM food with a higher content of digestible iron is likely to have a positive effect if consumed by iron- deficient individuals. Moreover there is a difficulty predicting the occurrence of long-term environmental effects, the precautionary approach, then, is the only solution to face this scientific uncertainty.
In any case is much wiser to focus efforts on such issues, using GM as a catalyst, instead of insisting that GM does not create such issues, according to M. Lipton (Reviving global poverty reduction: what role for GM plant?, ) GM plants could even be developed to help address those problems and solve them.
By examining these factors, it would be appropriate to consider the debate on food security and biotechnology and its three main points of view:
Some Scientists, such as Professor Beringer, claim that genetic engineering is the main solution to fight hunger and starvation, as he claims in FAO report: “In a real, hungry world, there are not solutions other than technological ones” (GM not needed to feed the world, ). This first assumption can be answered, poverty and hunger are not a consequence of lack of food but they involve issues of distribution and sometimes factors such as social conflict. However, scientists will always tend to draw from the knowledge of their own speciality when trying to develop solutions to problems rather than use a more holistic approach.
Nevertheless, there is another level of opinion about biotechnology that supports the idea that there are potential benefits in biotechnology, the problem is that its actual use does not meet the real necessities of developing countries to fight food insecurity. According to E. Yoxen, M. Lipton, I. Scoones…the researches on GM crops have to move in a different direction to generate some benefits for poor people, with their actual use they are more likely to keep elites in power, by offering them new links with new products such GM seeds. In this context biotechnology will appear as a technical fix for some economic problems (E. Yoxen, 1983:212). The application of biotechnology to a few strategic and high-priority areas and the use of GM crops to produce higher yields, be drought tolerant and improve their nutrient status are the main points to assure an efficient management of biotechnology and to not increase the actual gap between poor and rich.
Finally, there is another stage in this debate where authors as Mr Chambers sustain that “farmers need a better understanding of plant husbandry, not access to better genetic” (GM not needed to feed the world). Sustainable agriculture would be, according to this assumption , the solution for the actual problems in agriculture. Professor J. Pretty, Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex also supports alternative solutions. Pretty has demonstrated, according to FAO report (GM not needed to feed the world) that placing soil management at the core of farming techniques using little or no official inputs is producing consistent and frequently massive increases in output on millions hectares in parts of the world as diverse as Africa, Asia and Latin America. FAO report also sustains that the results of these farming techniques go unreported because they are not promoted by high profile corporations. Organic production then, as N. Perlas also claims (1994: 100), is the most efficient solution for global hunger, biotechnology will be at the bottom of the list.
Quite rightly in my opinion the second assumption is the most realistic, GM crops like all new technologies can be used for good and for bad. They can be managed for democratic groups to the benefit of the most needed or it can be used to serve the interests of specific groups that hold political, economic or technological power. Linking objectives, risks and benefits to food security it can be shown that: research on biotechnology is taking place in developed countries within a few private firms that have little incentive to direct their resources to benefit developing countries. As the research in the public sector is not as developed as in the private one, the needs of the hungry and the health and environmental concerns are not really being considered in all their importance. These are the technological-transcending risks which involve social, political and economic implications.
Firstly, it is important to note that, actually, the technology developers of biotechnology are found in developed countries and that the large- scale GM crops producers are also in these countries. GM research, which may well have enormous potential to reduce malnutrition and poverty is being largely directed by people for whom the employment- intensive enhancement of yield and robustness in main food staples, especially if grown by poor farmers who can retain seeds, can never be a main motive (Reviving global poverty reduction, ). For example the consolidation of seed companies with chemical companies breeds a conflict of interest which has the propensity of working against farmers. In several instances, the company that is genetically engineering this new crop is financially controlled by a parent chemical company like Montsanto; therefore GM crops will be dependent on herbicides suited to the brand of herbicide being produced by the chemical company. New forms of domination and manipulation are emerging with biotechnology. According to D. Parker and D. Zilberman, embodied products, that is luxury goods sustained by private research and monetary incentives are more important for these powerful companies than disembodied products or necessary goods with inelastic demand (1993:96). Several of these companies are also funding researches in different universities: Montsanto, for instance, has given over $50 million to Harvard, Washington and Rockefeller Universities and is building a $150 million life science complex. Hoechst, a giant German chemical company, has given Massachusetts General Hospital $70 million to do research in genetics. Often, these contracts have stipulations on confidentiality of information, it demonstrates that the results of researches are not addressed as a public benefit as food security but tend towards plant patents and breeders rights (Perlas, 1994:78). Uncertainty, therefore, exists about the contribution of GM crops to assure food security.
Secondly little research by private industry has focused on developed countries food crops other than maize and for limited work on rice and cassava, little biotechnology research have been developed to focus on productivity and nutrition of poor people. The Rockefeller Foundation’s agriculture program is one of the few examples: in 1998 it provided about $7.4 million for biotechnology research relevant to developing countries with emphasis on rice (Modern biotechnology for food and agriculture, ). The private sector involved in biotechnology focuses their researches on crops that can provide sufficient returns to cover costs, needs of small farmers are, then, unlikely to be considered.
Furthermore, although tissue culture and other biotechnological work is being carried out in several developing countries, very little GM crops have been grown in them, so ex-post assessment is impossible. Biotechnology is still in an early phase, only four developing countries: Argentina, Mexico, China and South Africa have 15% of the land planted to GM crops, the remaining 85% was in Australia, Canada, France, Spain and USA, with USA alone accounting for about 75%. Among the crops in these four developing countries are insect resistant soy beans, insect resistant maize and tomatoes with long shelf life. Herbicide resistant soya beans, insect resistant maize and GM cotton account for 85% of all planting (Modern biotechnology for food and agriculture).
What is relevant to this issue is that yellow- maize varieties and soya beans grown with GM are used to feed animals rather than as staples for poor people. Moreover, the most developed GM crops are based on herbicide resistant that though it can be useful for poor people it is not their main priority. Drought resistant crops are the most necessary; the majority of poor people live in drylands so that type of crops is much more useful. The actual efforts in this direction on GM crops come mostly from the public sector: Fan Shen Yield- enhancing rice hybrids in China with Rockefeller support, insertion of citric acid secreticy genes against aluminum toxicity into Mexican wheat and virus resistant into Colombian potatoes and Kenyan sweet potatoes and Rockefeller golden rice, enriched with vitamin A, fed into the system via the CGIAR and NARS ( Reviving global poverty reduction: what role for GM plant? )
GM research is therefore being steered to crops irrelevant for poor farmers, in some cases can be even harmful to the poor. For example, the recent displacement of agricultural sugar in the world market with fructose produced through biotechnology: sugar producing countries, such as the Philippines are suffering social dislocations as a result of the drop in world market prices for sugar. Cane sugar is increasingly being displaced by sugar substitutes produced through a form of biotechnology immobilised enzyme technology. Due to the resulting economics many conventional sugar factories in developing countries are closing down (Perlas, 1994: 80)
By examining other factors, food security is not an issue of quantity of food available. In this context, biotechnology is not the key for food security: it can be, if well managed, the key to improving yields and quality of plants and environment, but the problem to alleviate hunger is not food production but the different policies of distribution of food. According to the FAO report (GM not needed to feed the world), although the annual rate of growth in global crop production is expected to reduce, the projected overall increment in world crop production to 2030 of 57% will exceed population growth, so biotechnology used in order to increase productivity can be useful economically but it is not a guarantee of reduction of poverty and increase in food security.
Moreover the reality of GM crops is to address, in most of the cases, benefits for developed countries. The biotechnology debate takes place in these countries and their conclusions are often irrelevant to developing countries. This cannot be dissociated from the fact that those private companies from developed countries hold the right of patent GM products, it means that if farmers want to use a seed in their lands they have to pay a large amount of money to obtain permission from the patent holder to use it, it gives enormous power to these companies and prohibits a large number of small farmers, mostly in developing countries, from using these GM products as seed would be expensive to afford and difficult to obtain.
Finally, environmental and agricultural benefits in the long run are still to be proven, there have been some cases that show that products resulting from GMO’s could be hazardous, for example the GM bovine growth hormone, injected into cows to increase milk yields causes suffering and illness for the animals and also increase IGF-1 in milk, a substance linked to breast and prostate cancer in humans. On the other hand environmental hazards have been already proven: Findings in the Sierra Norte de Oxaca, Mexico, by a group of researches from the University of California, Berkeley, detected the contamination of indigenous corn from GM varieties, four of six samples of native corn taken from fields contained a genetic “switch” used in GM crops, two of the samples were found to have another DNA segment commonly inserted by genetic engineers. Another sample contained a gene that prompts the plant to produce a poison (Contamination of Mexican corn, ). However, B. Shapiro, head of the GM company Monsanto recognises that they do not have the answers to the public’s concerns about safety, genetic pollution, ethics and the power of corporations, but is now committed to engaging in dialogue with society to find solutions (We forgot to listen: GM food, special report, ).
In short GM development appears to be the most promising via staples yield enhancement for poverty reduction, the problem is that it is locked into a system where it is not used for such purposes and where a few large firms are competitively bound to protect their investment. The biggest risk of GM food are not related to health or the environment, even if some risks have been shown, but that technological development will bypass poor farmers, a form of scientific apartheid may well develop in which science becomes orientated exclusively toward industrial countries and large-scale farming (Modern biotechnology for food and agriculture).
According to M. Lipton (Reviving global poverty reduction: what role for GM plant?), crops would be designed not to be profit- seeking but to:
- Produce higher yields.
- Be drought tolerant.
- Favour higher employment.
- Improve the nutrient status of crops.
- Focus on staples grown and eaten by poor farmers in small farms in developing countries.
INDIA
The case of India is a clear case of a country that needs to find a solution for starvation. In India a third of the world’s hungry currently live and famine and food insecurity are persistent problems. Millions of people are malnourished: there are some deficiencies of iodine, vitamin A, iron and other nutrients. The Green Revolution brought to India damage to health and environment caused by excessive and indiscriminate use of pesticides. They have been researching biotechnology to address their primordial needs, which are, according to V. Dhawam (Biotechnology and India’s food security, )
- Sustainable increase in productivity in major food crops, reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticide use and replacing them with biotechnological products.
- Integrated soil, water and nutritional management.
- Increase in the productivity of livestock, fisheries and aquaculture.
Biotechnology applications could solve some of the problems:
- Increase productivity and preserve fragile land areas.
- Improve nutritional standards.
- Lower cost for unit production
- Meeting farmers needs in the critical rainfed and marginal areas.
With biotechnology crops can achieve a new range of qualities. Biotechnology is being developed in order to give a solution, almost all the research is carried out in governmental laboratories and universities and 90% of the research in biotechnology is government funded. Government expenditure on biotechnology amounted to $18.99 in 1992- 93 (Biotechnology in India, ).
However, the actual support given to biotechnology research aimed to agricultural problems in India is small. For example, of the 13 tasks set up by the department of biotechnology, only three are related to agriculture:
- Plant molecular and agriculture biotechnology
- Biological pest control.
- Fuel, fodder, biomass, horticulture, plantation crops and sericulture.
The research in agricultural biotechnology is largely aimed at an increase in productivity by the use of fertilisers, biopesticides and the development of plants with resistance to pests and diseases ( ). As it can be seen GM crop technologies might not be the solution in Indian drylands, where farm productivity is low because of poor soil fertility or scant rainfall, the GM developed do not provide solutions for these farmers in hot drought- prone regions. It is easier to engineer crops for specific resistance to pest and diseases than to engineer crops to resist drought or heat. In fact the researches on biotechnology have been focused on a few commodity crops such as citrus, coffee and mangrove; the new researches try to improve brassicas, mung bean, cotton and potato. None of them can assure an increase of food security for the poor. These are not the staple crops. (Policies toward GM crops in India, ).
Secondly, it has been showed that Gm crops can pose a real threat to India’s ecology and economy, the case of Monsanto- Mahyco’s GM Bt cotton is a good example: Monsanto’s Bt cotton would have been the first GM crop to be commercialised in India, however, the Indian authority ordered an additional year of field trials for this kind of cotton, conducted under an independent supervision of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, due to the fact that the data already available from Monsanto- Mahyco was not valid, the field trials were not conducted during a normal cotton season. Furthermore there was not any information of the emerging problem with their cotton in China, where the most common pest to this kind of cotton, cotton bollworm, has already developed some resistance to the BT crops and the farmers have to use pesticides in addition. They also failed to provide scientific data on the effects of GM Bt cotton in natural enemies of the cotton bollworm, such as the lacewing, which is used as a biological pest control, an alternative to chemical pesticides (India refuses commercial growing of GM cotton, ).
It seems to me that biotechnology is creating big expectations in order to solve the major problem in India, that is food insecurity, the issue is that biotechnology is still in its early phase and the reality is that the direction of the researches are not addressing the needs of food production in this country. They can offer conveniences to Indian farmer in terms of reducing costs on pesticides or fertilisers, but it does not feed the poor, as it has been shown the researches are concentrated on virus and disease resistance. Adoption of GM crops will actually increase hunger by making poor farmers reliant on the few multinational corporations that control the market for these seeds.
Fears over the effects of GM food on health or the environment are also having their impacts in the public, people are actually increasingly concerned and generating critics that affect policies on biotechnology, but the point is that fears have been based on consistent cases of health and environmental hazards in different parts of the world.
It is also feared in India, according to L. Hardin and J. Vidal (Special report: GM food debate, ), that the extensive introduction of GM crops will lead to the displacement of million of poor rural labourers, forced to migrate to the cities in search of work because jobs such as weeding, done principally by poor migrant labourers, will disappear with the introduction of GM crops. Incentives offered by companies to persuade farmers to replace their traditional crops with cash crops can also be a threat to biodiversity.
The solutions M. Lipton (Reviving global poverty reduction) draws to address food security in biotechnology research are the following:
-To work with the half dozen developing countries NARS’s with substantial GM research capacity to design and finance a major expansion around agreed crops, regions, traits and types of farm target. The problems are that huge financial input is needed and difficulties can arise with excluded countries.
-The second one is to build on big GM firms’ need for better public image and their growing recognition that current arrangements for GM research are not working globally, one route could be to work with the public sector and to offer substantial prices for developing specific varieties.
-The third approach is to build on the practice of at least one of the GM giants of attracting scientists by allowing them to use a part of their time for self-prioritized research using company real capital.
CONCLUSION
The arguments given above suggest that, despite the potential benefits that biotechnology can offer to India and all developing countries, it is necessary to change direction to become a powerful tool to fight against poverty and improve food security and nutrition. Is this, then, the clue for a new revolution?
Arther Kornberg, Nobel Laureate, stated:” Much has been said about the future impact of biotechnology on industrial development, but this does not yet apply to the less developed countries that lack this infrastructure and industrial strength. In view of the current power of biotechnology and its even brighter future, there is no question that the less developed countries must now position and strengthen their status in biotechnology…what a tragedy it would be if these enlarged concepts of genetic, biology and chemistry were available only to a small fraction of the world population located in a few major centres of highly developed countries”.
(India: biotechnology research and development, )
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