GMO Food for Thought

Since their introduction in the mid-1990s (first in China with virus-resistant tobacco), genetically modified (or “GM”) biotech crops have continued to increase in use around the world. They are now grown by some 7 million farmers across more than 90 million hectares in at least 22 countries (see www.isaaa.org)....Various economic studies of GM crops, such as those of Jorge Fernandez-Cornejo of the US Department of Agriculture and independent European government studies, have continued to show that GM crops save input costs (pesticides and fuel), reduce tillage, provide more free time to growers, increase yields and/or protect the environment (through less and safer pesticide use, reduced erosion, etc.).

Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot, two UK based economists, have quantified the cumulative economic and environmental impacts of biotech crops grown from 1996-2005 (the study can be found at: http://www.agbioforum.org). Since 1996, Brookes and Barfoot report that the global use of pesticides in GM crops was reduced by 224 million kilograms. Herbicide tolerant canola, mostly in Canada, saw a reduction of 6.3 million kg, some 11% of use. In 2005, the CO2 savings from reduced fuel use in GM crops was close to 1 billion kg and the increase in the amount of carbon stored in the soil due to a reduction in tillage was more than 8 billion kg. This combined reduction of over 9 billion kg of CO2 emissions in 2005 is the equivalent of removing almost 4 million cars from the road for one year. Further, farmers earned higher incomes in every country where GM crops are grown. Farm income increased by $US 5 billion from biotech crops in 2005 and the cumulative increase in farm income from biotech crops since 1996 was $27 billon. Growers of herbicide tolerant canola had farm income benefits of $195 million in 2005 alone, with $713 million in total since 1996!

For several years now, more than half of the millions of tonnes of soy imported to Europe has been GM. This has been used for stock feed, with no labelling required of the meat and poultry products sold to consumers. As with canola, there never has been any significant premium for GM free soy, at least not enough to offset the production advantages, so GM soy production has continued to expand. Similarly, millions of tonnes of GM corn, canola, and soy have been imported to Japan and used for human consumption, fed to dairy cows and so forth. News reports indicate that the EU will soon finally approve GM canola for import, but it is already importing canola oil from Canadian GM crops to fuel its increasing demand for biodiesel. Further, not only is Europe importing and using GM crops, they are growing their own! In 2006, Spain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Romania, and Slovakia planted GM crops, now on a total of at least 170,000 ha, with 5-fold increases in several of these countries in 2006 (see www.isaaa.org).

The potential for problems with co-existence of GM and non-GM crops has been claimed as a reason not to grow GM crops, but in the US and Canada, where farmers have been growing GM crops and non-GM crops for more than a decade, co-existence simply is not a real issue. One Californian producer, for example, Terranova Farms, is growing organic, conventional and GM cotton in the same enterprise without any problems, and with the full awareness of its customer, Patagonia clothing. The state of Iowa, which has one of the highest levels of GM corn uptakes in the US, also has one of the highest proportions of organic production of any US state. I have searched long and hard for any evidence of problems with coexistence anywhere, and found no evidence of any problems of neighbours suing each other, lost certifications for organic growers, or anything of the kind.

To be thorough, there was a major problem with the use of Starlink corn in the US, but this was a foolish registration and growers have been compensated with large pay-outs from the company that registered the corn, not between growers. I have yet to find any documented cases of financial losses to organic growers, and in any case, organic farming is certified on the basis of product, not process (as in Australia). Growers cannot lose their certification over GM (or pesticide residues) so long as they follow the required farming practices.

In sum, all of the reasons cited for the initiation of the state moratoria on GM crops in Australia are now obsolete. In those cases where there ever were any issues to be resolved, developments in other countries have passed them by. However, the moratoria are continuing to delay innovations for Australian growers for the very kinds of traits that are desperately needed, such as drought tolerance and salinity.

Researchers around the world, many of them in the public-sector (including countries like Japan, South Africa, China, and India), rather than large companies, are finding increasing numbers of single-gene characteristics that provide levels of tolerance to drought and salinity. Such single-gene traits are comparatively easy to transfer into breeding programs, so there is potential for rapid development of drought and salt-tolerant grain varieties. Drought tolerant wheat varieties have been tested already in greenhouses in Mexico at the international research centre, CIMMYT. At the University of California, Davis, Dr Eduardo Blumwald produced salt tolerant canola 5 years ago. He’s started to develop a salt-tolerant lucerne that could grow into somewhat saline groundwater. This opens the way for an economic return while slowing or reversing salinity due to rising water tables, an attribute that would appear to have huge potential for salinity control in Australia.

ABARE has concluded that the state moratoria could cost Australia some $3 billion by 2015. GM crops Australia can’t afford to turn its back on the potential of this and similar work for Australian growers. Who’s going to invest in this research in the face of an uncertain commercial future driven by the state moratoria? The moratoria must be lifted so that Australia’s farmers can share the “freedom to farm” enjoyed by our competitors.

However, the public and some political leaders in Australia are being persuaded that there are unknown risks to human health, the environment, and the economy from GM crops, in some cases by 1-2 people with scientific credentials (e.g., Judy Carmen and friends), but mostly by people without such credentials (Bob Phelps, Julie Newman, even Kim Chance). It is important to remember that there are always people with extreme views on any subject. We even have people in Australia and elsewhere around the world who claim the holocaust never happened, or (recently) that AIDS is not caused by HIV. We need to help the press understand that just because there are a few people who will make extreme claims, there are not two legitimate "sides" to some statements. Anti-GM activists surely have the right to their own opinions, but not to create their own facts.