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Making GM crops look good
(Monday, March 8, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- Devinder Sharma commentary in ZNet, 03/05/04: For years, they made us believe that genetically modified (GM) crops
reduce pesticide applications and thereby help in protecting the
environment. For years, they worked hard, manipulating scientific data,
to justify the increasing public investment in a risky technology. For
several years now, they have succeeded in diverting the public attention
from the more pressing problems of hunger and malnutrition for the sake
of private profit.
The citadel of scientific fraud has now begun to crumble.
Amidst reports that the pesticides application in GM crops in the United
States has actually multiplied, comes the damming indictment of the
faulty technology from the crop fields in Africa. Trials to develop a
virus-resistant sweet potato, launched in Kenya in 2001 by the US
special envoy, Dr Andrew Young, have failed. The much-hyped GM
technology, that was claimed to usher in a green revolution in Africa,
has finally turned out to be a scientific crap.
The virus-resistant sweet potato, donated by Monsanto to Kenya
Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), has been found to be susceptible
to viral attacks. This is the same sweet potato that a black African
woman, in her colourful traditional dress, has used in her non-stop
global sermons on feeding the hungry in Africa. Sponsored by the US
Agency for International Development (USAID) and Monsanto, Dr Florence
Wambugu of KARI, has gone around the world telling how the transgenic
potato could raise the crop yield from four to ten tonnes per hectare.
The media loved her. The media, in fact, adores everyone who speaks in
favour of the GM crops. After all, the future of the world lies only in
increasing the corporate profits, which in turn benefits the media. So
whether it was The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, or the
discredited Fox TV, they all clamoured around her. The Forbes magazine
even went to the extent of naming her among the 15 people from all over
the world who will 'reinvent the future'.
Reports now indicate that the transgenic sweet potato yields less than
the traditional varieties. In other words, knowing that the transgenic
sweet potato wouldn't work, Dr Florence Wambugu, had faked it.
Earlier, Aaron deGrassi of the Institute of Development Studies at
Sussex (UK) too had picked up holes in Dr Florence Wambugu's claims. In
a detailed report on GM crops in Africa, he had said: "Accounts of the
transgenic sweet potato have used low figures on average yields in Kenya
to paint a picture of stagnation. An early article stated 6 tons per
hectare - without mentioning the data source - which was then reproduced
in subsequent analyses. However, FAO statistics indicate 9.7 tons, and
official statistics report 10.4." In simple words, the transgenic sweet
potato that was being imposed as the answer to Africa's food security
was no better.
His warning went unheard. Meanwhile, World Bank, USAID and Monsanto
continue to sponsor her research project running for over 12 years now,
involving 19 researchers, 16 of them with PhDs, something unusual for
Africa. If only the US $ 6 million that has been incurred on her
research project had been used for fighting hunger, more than six
million impoverished Africans could have been fed adequately for as many
as six years.
No one is however keen to remove hunger. Not only the World Bank, USAID
or the private companies, even agricultural scientists are looking
forward to any and every possibility to latch on to hunger and
malnutrition.
The sweet potato debacle is the latest in the series of flops that have
tumbled out from the GM industry laboratories, and that too in the name
of ameliorating hunger and building food security. Ever since the days
of the Flavr Savr tomato, the magic bullets of technology have failed to
enthuse the farmers and the consumers alike. The 'golden rice', the
protein-rich potato in India -- protrato, and now the fall of the
transgenic sweet potato in Africa, are all classic examples of the great
exercise in public deception.
At the same time, the GM industry finds itself in a terrible fix over
reports that the cultivation of transgenic crops in the United States
has actually led to an increase in the application and use of
pesticides. This negates the only saving grace that the industry had so
far used successfully used -- GM crops reduce the use of pesticides
thereby leading not only to sustainable farming systems but also to a
safe environment.
Drawing on the official records of the US Department of Agriculture,
Charles Benbrook of the Northwest Science and Environment Policy Centre
at Idaho (USA), concludes that the planting of 55 million acres of
genetically engineered (GE) corn, soybeans and cotton in the United
States since 1996 has increased pesticide use by about 50 million
pounds.
Substantial increases in herbicide use on "herbicide tolerant" crops,
especially soybeans, was cited as the main reason that accounted for the
increase in pesticide use on GM crops compared to acres planted to
conventional plant varieties. 'Herbicide tolerant' plants are
genetically modified to ensure that those who grow these crops have no
other option but to also the use the herbicides of the same companies.
For the agribusiness companies, 'herbicide tolerant' crops are the sure
means of profit security. That the American farmers have complied with
the profit motive of the companies is quite obvious.
Benbrook says that many farmers have had to spray incrementally more
herbicides on GM crops in order to keep up with shifts in weeds toward
tougher-to-control species, coupled with the emergence of genetic
resistance in certain weed populations. For the developing countries,
the implications of this study are enormous and of course serious.
Agribusiness companies will exploit the small farmers pushing them more
into a debt trap and at the same time do more damage to the environment
and crop sustainability.
Whether it is chemical pesticides or the pest-resistant GM crops, the
effectiveness against the target pest lasts only for a couple of years.
In case of cotton, for instance, the agribusiness industry is exhorting
farmers to adopt Bt cotton, which has the inbuilt ability to produce a
toxin that kills the pink bollworms. In India, in the very first year of
commercial planting, Mahyco-Monsanto priced the seed four times than the
existing price, thereby earning its pound of flesh in the very first
year. The Bt gene has been further licensed to half a dozen companies
from which a substantial royalty has also been drawn.
The Bt cotton crop has, meanwhile, failed in the very first year of
planting in large parts of the country. While the farmers suffered, the
company that sold the seed has gone scot-free. By the time the farmers
wake up to the damage done by the Bt crop to the environment as well as
the economy, the seed companies will bring in the next generation
transgenic. Agribusiness industry had done exactly the same in the past
five decades, bringing in more potent chemicals each time the insect
developed resistance to the pesticides. In the bargain, the number of
problem insects in cotton that the farmers are now confronted with has
multiplied to 70. In the 1960s, only seven crop pests worried the
farmers. In three decades, the problem pests have multiplied by ten
times.
All over the world, Bt cotton is now losing its resistance to the pests
as a result of which the pesticides consumption is going up. In China,
where over 7 million hectares are under Bt cotton cultivation,
pesticides usage has once again reverted back to almost what existed
before its commercialization in 1999. Scientists are therefore
refraining from conducting studies on pesticides saving four years
later, knowing that such an analysis would be damming for the industry. | |
