Steering a sustainable path through GM issues

Are genetically modified (GM) crops vital to solve the current global food and land crisis? The current situation has, if not shifted the European view, at least rocked it substantially. From a solid resistance to any trace of GM in the food chain, people are now beginning to question whether this resistance is valid in the face of a food crisis, rising prices, increasing demands on available land, and water scarcity issues.

In the UK we have seen plenty of articles in the press in the last few weeks around GM technology and its role in tackling the food crisis. Some different positions have been made clear – government ministers calling for wider use of the technology, yet the chairman of a major biotechnology firm has explained that GM crops will not solve the current food crisis. In April the international multidisciplinary IAASTD report highlighted the uncertainty of possible benefits and damage of biotechnology.

We’ve looked into what it would take for GM to form a part of a sustainable agricultural system and regardless of which sustainability framework or lens we use to look at the issues – whether it’s the Five Capitals approach, The Natural Step, or triple bottom line accounting – we come down to the same couple of principles:

Current GM technology is designed to be used in agricultural systems and within overall business models which are inherently unsustainable and which rely on depleting stocks of resources, rather than maintaining or building them.The potential for GM crops to increase yields, without using up finite resources, and in ways which do not threaten people’s livelihoods, has not yet been realised.

Click here to download 5 Capitals summary of GM issues

The variety of issues that have led to food riots across the world show us that we need to use long-term solutions to tackle them. Many of the trends, for example land pressure to grow biofuel crops, have come around themselves from taking a short-term view in the past and not fully understanding knock-on effects when we have tried to find a more sustainable path.

Globally, the area under cultivation by GMOs increased by 12% last year, to 114m hectares. America topped the list, but there is rapid growth in Argentina, Brazil, India and China (The next Green Revolution – The Economist 21 Feb 2008). The main crops are Roundup Ready maize and soyabeans. It’s promised that the second generation will have further traits, such as drought resistance, 'stacked' on top, and that further ‘upgrades’ on plant traits will happen more and more rapidly. Deep concerns stem from the fact that current GM crops are owned and controlled by a handful of large companies, represented by the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, together holding major sway over lobbying and the public face of the technology, as well as proprietary control over crop genomes.

Qualities such as nitrogen-fixing by cereals, and drought and salt-resistance would no doubt increase yields, and allow crops to be grown on marginal land. So far these traits aren’t available. As Jonathon Porritt’s article for Prospect magazine last December explained, these traits need to be tested and proven before we can claim that GM crops will help tackle world hunger. The report by the IAASTD , 'the IPCC of global agriculture', gives a comprehensive list of priorities for tackling global agriculture issues, and stresses the need for delivery of agricultural technologies to involve “thorough, open and transparent engagement of all stakeholders”.

In summary, GM might have a role to play in securing a more sustainable food production system in the future…

…but, it’s definitely not a ‘silver-bullet’ solution to world hunger, climate change and poverty.

Right now, our priorities should be reducing waste in the food chain, eating a less meat-intensive diet, and ensuring our production systems are energy and resource efficient and non-polluting, as well as overall poverty reduction measures to increase access to food.

Claire SkinnerLena Staafgard