Note: Traditional biotechnology uses techniques such as crossbreeding, fermentation, and enzymatic treatments to produce desired changes in plants, animals and foods. In recent years, however, food biotechnology has become synonymous with the terms genetically engineered foods and genetically modified organism (GMO). For the purposes of this article, biotechnology (Bt), genetic engineering (GE) and genetically modified organism (GMO) will be used interchangeably.

Crisis and Change

For the first time since 1970, more than 1 billion people worldwide are undernourished. The global financial crisis has certainly undercut efforts to reduce hunger, with food producing nations issuing restrictions on exports of staples, thus exacerbating rising food prices and hindering delivery of food aid to those in need.

However, this worsening trend of food insecurity was present even before the economic downturn. The threat of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns, the limited supply of water and land, and food riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt are signs that our need to rethink current global food policies has never been so urgent.

In “How to Feed the World?” an aptly titled Newsweek article, eight leaders in the fight against hunger offer up food crisis action plans and long term ideas for how to end famine and bolster farming. Most stated or implied that a Second Green Revolution would boost productivity, raise incomes and reduce poverty. The “Green Revolution” was a series of research, development and technology transfer initiatives that were introduced in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s and the 1970s. These technologies combined improved varieties of wheat, rice and hybrid maize with irrigation and chemical fertilizers to produce higher crop yields and increased resistance to pests and diseases.

A Second Green Revolution, through the pursuit of biotechnology methods, would increase food production even in regions with poor soil and short supplies of water. Proponents of genetic engineering claim that biotechnology would combat malnutrition, increase crop yields, decrease the need for chemical and water inputs, increase resistance to crop stress such as drought, and increase income generation and rural development.

Genetic Engineering and Safety

The call for a Second Green Revolution has prompted sharp backlash from various segments of society. Concerns against genetically modified (GM) foods should be taken seriously, and may provide insight into how to reconcile opposing opinions on the launch of a Second Green Revolution and, ultimately, how to work towards global food security.

Anxiety over potential damages caused by consumption of GMOs has already proved detrimental to masses of starving populations. In 2002, a drought-stricken Zambia refused U.S. emergency food aid to relieve its affected citizens. The corn offered by the U.S. contained GM seeds, which some Zambians feared could produce long-term health and environmental problems. Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa confirmed that a major factor in refusing U.S. aid was the “potential risk of GM maize affecting the export of baby corn and honey in particular and organic foods in general to the European Union if planted.” The EU threatened to that if Zambia adopted GMO crops, exports of crops such as tobacco, sweet corn, baby corn and organic products from Zambia will not be accepted. Due a WTO ruling, the EU was forced to lift its five-year ban on import of foods containing new types of GMOs in 2004, but the continued European mistrust of GM food safety draws attention to an issue that may be allayed with proper testing regulations.

The most vital US agencies for consumer protection—the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency—have done little to calm domestic and international concerns. Due to aggressive lobbying from agricultural corporations such as Monsanto and pressure from powerful government officials with close ties to these corporations, GMOs are categorized as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) for consumption, thus not subject to mandatory testing. The Center for Science in the Public Interest contends that the FDA missed “obvious errors” in reviewing some gene-altered crops.

Strict testing on GM foods is necessary for consumer protection. Labeling is also a step towards transparency, allowing consumers to make informed choices about purchasing such foods. If the FDA and other researchers can demonstrate that their testing procedures will safeguard consumers, domestic and international suspicion will gradually come to recognize biotechnology as a legitimate means to conquer environmental limitations.

Genetic Engineering and the Environment

Besides human and environmental safety, the second general argument against genetic engineering focuses the ecological impact of Bt crops. Contrary to popular belief, most GM crops reduce the need for chemical pesticides and insecticides because of their built-in Bt resistance genes.

However, because the genetic structure of products such as Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds are also modified using biotechnology, the public can easily confound the different categorizes of Bt crops. Corporate production of Bt seeds that require the use of pesticides that are manufactured by the same company harms the environment, while at the same time diverting attention from the gains made in GE crops funded and developed by the public sector.

Studies conducted by both sides of the debate yield contradictory assessments of the effect of GMOs on insects such as bees and Monarch butterflies that come in contact with the crops. Michelle Marvier of Santa Clara University’s Environmental Studies Institute, who assesses the ecological risk of genetically engineered crops and the conservation of biological diversity, observes that “for GM crops, the studies might involve just a handful of insects or field plots. When studies have low replication, the results are more likely to reflect chance outcomes. So, given this, it should be expected that some studies might show a negative effect and others a positive effect.” Her own research using meta-analysis found that Bt crops are generally more benign for non-target invertebrates than insecticides. A second meta-analysis of lab studies found no harmful effects of Cry proteins—the toxins produced by Bt crop—for honeybees. Click here to read more on the issue of contradictory results of biosafety issues and/or Michelle Marvier’s research.

Converting to Bt crops inevitably diminishes biodiversity, which makes it imperative to increase other efforts to preserve biodiversity. Bt crops should not be viewed as displacing alternative forms of agriculture. It is a proven strategy to integrate agriculture into harsh landscapes, oftentimes where poverty and hunger are most at risk. In regions more conducive to agriculture, conventional methods should be respected and exploration of organic farming can be even more beneficial.

However, as Purdue Professor and 2009 World Food Prize laureate Gebisa Ejeta notes, the environment in harsh climates is under threat not because input use is excessive and crop yields are too high, but because very few purchased inputs are being used at all, soil nutrients are being depleted, and crop yields are too low. As a result, fragile new lands have to be cleared.

Structural Reform

A third critique of planting GE crops stresses the possibility that small, poor farmers will be further marginalized. Again the culprit may not be technology itself, but rather GE’s systemic procedures. The current operational structures for engineering, growing, and marketing Bt crops are ill-suited to the needs of the poor.

Consider the relative success of the first Green Revolution. In the 1960s and 1970s, international agricultural research centers—in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), local governments and private donors—targeted scientific breakthroughs at poor farmers in developing nations.

The nature of agricultural science has changed dramatically in the past few decades. Today most Bt research, led by multinational agribusinesses such Monsanto, funnels research into commodity crops such as corn, soybean, cotton and canola rather than nutritional staple foods like yams, plantains and cassava.

A corporate-led Green Revolution will do little to serve the poor. Africa’s drought challenge comes from its lack of technological protection against its rainfall variation. Only four percent of cultivated land in Sub-Sahara Africa is currently provided with irrigation.

Robert Paarlberg notes in “Starved for Science” that the drought tolerant (DT) maize varieties now under commercial development are yellow maize, not the tropical white varieties grown by smallholders in Africa. He also argues that it would be possible at a relatively modest cost to move engineered DT traits into white varieties; but private companies have little commercial incentive to do so.

Furthermore, intellectual property rights make newly developed crops inaccessible to most of the world’s poor farmers. Substantial per-bushel technology fees and other costs linked to converting to Bt crops mean that only solvent U.S. farmers can benefit. A solution is to guarantee humanitarian use licenses. Humanitarian use licenses supply people in need with technology at a royalty-free or lowered cost basis. They assure that products of research and development stay publicly available while at the same time maintaining the incentive functions of exclusive intellectual property right.

Technological improvements can help regions not well suited for agriculture or regions threatened by changing climate patterns. However, a successful Second Green Revolution requires the world to redefine basic priorities, focusing on humanitarian efforts for sustained development. Developed nations such as the U.S. need to invest in agricultural research in the public sector, focusing on staple food crops and guaranteeing humanitarian use licenses.

Gebisa Ejeta proposes revitalizing agricultural research in academic institutions, collaborative research support programs, and international agricultural research centers. Logistical and financial support from NGOs, governments of developed nations and local governments of developing nations will be critical in ensuring assess to seeds and the necessary farming implements for small, poor farmers.

He also notes the negative consequences of the shift in developed countries’ foreign policy away from investment in agricultural infrastructure to a focus on  food aid. Non-emergency food aid from surplus grains actually undermines local economies. Small farmers cannot compete with the cheap prices of corn and soybean from the U.S. and EU where heavy subsidies encourage domestic overproduction and external food dumping.

Trade policy reform would enable farmers in developing nations to once again grow and sell their own crops. Increased food security benefits developing nations while decreasing money spent on humanitarian aid by developed nations. The big loser in this would of course be multinational agribusinesses that profit from the trade imbalance.

Conclusion

While Bt crops are necessary in areas where climate or soil conditions limit food production, their effectiveness will be undermined by existing policies that are defined by monetary interests rather than humanitarian concerns.

But biotechnology is not necessarily the culprit itself. On the contrary, for regions battling drought and future climate change, biotechnology can be a tool for food security. Innovation should not be discouraged, but the self-serving policies of multinational corporations and of developed nations are contemptible.

On the other hand, biotechnology should not be considered the cure-all to end global food insecurity. Global hunger is not simply a manifestation of problems in food production. It stems from embedded natural, social, economic, and political inequalities.

To really feed the world, global food policy should be reoriented towards helping hunger-stricken regions end dependence on foreign aid and achieve food security. Trade policy reform eliminating EU and U.S. domestic subsidies would enable farmers in developing nations to once again grow and sell their own crops. Sustainable farming techniques and investment in agricultural infrastructure should also be pursued where appropriate.

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