Backing for GM crops still a political hot potato

Date: 09/09/04

EUROPEAN governments are hypersensitive about how their support for genetic technologies is perceived.

As yet, no consensus has emerged on the merits of developing gene technologies in poor countries. In the absence of such an agreement, regardless of the technical merits of genetic engineering, giving support for the use of genetically modified (GM) crops in the Third World remains politically unattractive.

There was a bitter row between the US and EU in 2002-03 over the supply of GM food from the US as aid to Africa. The use of food aid, genetically modified or not, was already the subject of some transatlantic tension, since the EU argues that it is a disguised form of subsidy from the US government to its farmers.

But the offer of GM food added another layer of controversy. After Zambia had banned GM food, US President George W. Bush complained last year that the opposition of several EU governments to biotechnology was turning African countries against it, thereby impeding the fight against hunger. The European Commission insisted that neither it, nor any of the Union's member states, had sought to do so.

So far the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) has failed to convince development charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that genetically engineered foods have a role to play in addressing hunger in the world's poorest nations. In a report on agricultural biotechnology published in the early summer, the UNFAO estimated that more than 842 million people in the world were "chronically hungry". Over the next 30 years, an additional two billion people would need food.

"There is a clear promise that biotechnology can contribute to meeting these challenges," the FAO concluded.

The greatest contribution that biotechnology can make comes from the genetic modification of seeds, for instance to create crops resistant to pests and diseases, to improve the nutritional quality of the food by enhancing certain vitamins and to improve crop yields.

This is more appropriate for small-scale, resource-poor farmers than the more complicated animal biotechnologies being developed for use in Europe and North America, which require developed infrastructures, high capital inputs and complex management strategies.

The FAO report recognizes that there is a mismatch between the potential contribution that crop biotechnology can make and the products that are currently being developed.

"Biotechnology research is essentially driven by the world's top ten transnational corporations, which are spending annually $3 billion," says FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. This investment is targeted on developing commercial products for large markets.

While there are some "spillover benefits" for commercial farmers in the developing world, biotechnology research to help subsistence farmers is largely left to the public sector.

Even there, there is competition for funds because governments want to support agricultural biotechnology with commercial potential.

According to the UNFAO, while public and private sector biotech research is being carried out on more than 40 crops worldwide, there are few major public or private-sector biotechnology programmes targeting the problems of small farmers in poor countries and the crops and animals on which they rely.

"Neither the private nor the public sector has invested significantly in new genetic technologies for the so-called orphan crops such as cowpea, millet, sorghum and teff that are critical for the food supply and livelihoods of the world's poorest people," explains Diouf.

As a consequence, the FAO report made a strong recommendation that "the public sector in developing and developed countries, donors and the international research centres should direct more resources to agricultural research, including biotechnology".

While Diouf thinks the FAO report achieved a balance between technological potential and developing country concerns, the reaction tells another story. Following its publication, 670 NGOs in both developed and developing nations wrote an open letter to the UNFAO, expressing their dissent. Signatories ranged from the Zambia national farmers' union and the African Centre for Biosafety to agroecological groups in Columbia, The Gaia Foundation in the UK, Fundacion Agricultura y Medio Ambiente in the Dominican Republic, Christian Aid and Friends of the Earth.

For them, the UNFAO report proposes a technological fix of developing crops critical to the food security of marginalized peoples, rather than addressing the real problems of poverty that create hunger.

"Hunger in the world is growing again despite the fact that global per capita food production has been higher than ever before. Issues of access and distribution are far more important than technology," the report states.

The 670 NGOs maintain that history demonstrates that structural changes in access to land, food and political power, combined with robust, ecological technologies through farmer-led research, reduce hunger and poverty. In contrast they say that gene technologies are "based on astronomically costly, elite, industry-dominated research using patented technologies". The same resources, if directed to farmer-led, participatory research networks, "would generate far more equitable, productive and ecologically sound technologies".

Even among NGOs that are more open to GM technologies, there are reservations about the current prospects for reducing world hunger. Oxfam says it is neither for nor against genetic technologies in the abstract, but would rather consider their appropriateness or potential impacts for poor people in specific contexts. "The focus should be on poverty rather than technical solutions to hunger," it says. "Hunger is a result of poverty and the causes of poverty are much broader than those of hunger."

Industry has been more welcoming. However, it is lukewarm about the suggestion that public research funding should be increased. "The research money is there. We have to ask how it can be better utilized and effectively used," says Christian Verschueren, director-general of CropLife International, federation of the plant science industry, which includes giant multinationals Monsanto and Syngenta. In this context, the EU has a role to play "bringing funding together and deflecting some resources from its budget to helping poorer countries", Verschueren adds.

He also advocates more private sector donations of gene technologies for developing countries. "The seeds are more expensive than conventional seeds," he admits, "but farmers quickly recognize higher crop yields."

This response from the industry creates suspicion in some NGOs.

"It's a complete con to suggest the technologies are being used altruistically," says Clare Oxborrow, a GM campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

"The world food supply would be concentrated in the hands of a few international companies."

European governments are aware of this lack of consensus and therefore are unwilling to take the politically charged step of advocating the use of GM technologies even where the potential benefits are the most clear cut.

This is reflected in the Commission's position. "We have our own rules in the EU but it is not for the Commission to say whether gene technologies are good or bad for developing countries," says a spokesperson for the Commission's development department.

"It's not for us to impose our rules."

• Saffina Rana is a Brussels-based freelance journalist.

The use of genetically modified food in development aid is highly contested, especially between the EU and the US.