Tuesday 10 April, 2001
GM Crop Control
Genetically engineered crops are controversial on many fronts. There are raging debates over whether the developing world needs them to feed their growing populations.
There are arguments about whether they're safe to eat and no one knows if GM crops pose a threat to the environment. And there's another big controversial issue - who owns the GM crops? And who's going to make money from their exploitation?
In the final part of Seeds of Contention, Andrew Luck-Baker investigates whether there are dangers for farmers from the degree of control, ownership and influence multinational companies have over GM technology.
There are growing concerns about the consequences of the power and influence wielded by the big agricultural biotech corporations. The most troubling vision of the future - painted by some non-governmental groups - has farmers all over the world with no option but to buy patented genetically engineered seed from the big companies - which also supply all the necessary agro-chemicals that go with them.
In this grim vision of the future, woe betide the growers if they try to save seed and replant it, or then again perhaps they wouldn't have that possibility - because of the notorious terminator genes that stop crops producing viable seed.
The reality of genetic plant engineering is that you, as a researcher or company, can be awarded a patent on a particular GM crop you've developed - in some countries you can patent a gene you've isolated if you know what particular job that gene does.
It is also possible to patent the laboratory techniques - the so-called enabling technologies - scientists use to genetically engineer crops.
Seed Sharing
Seed sharing and saving is practised by millions of small holders throughout the developing world, who do not have the resources to buy seed every year - if at all.
However the reality of genetic plant engineering is that along with patents comes the instruction from the biotech seed companies that any seeds produced by their transgenic crops cannot be collected and replanted. Farmers have to sign contracts agreeing not to plant such seed or pass it on to other farmers - indeed some in North America have been sued for doing that.
Farmers and Multinationals
The relationship between developing world farmers and the multinational biotech companies is the chief concern of RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International. It's been concerned for sometime about the merging of agrochemical companies with seed companies and with biotechnology companies, to form single entities.
The organisation's Latin American representative, Silvia Ribeiro, says the recent history of consolidation within just international seed industry is a worrying trend:
'When RAFI started some 20 years ago there were about 7000 seed companies in the world market reaching 1% of the market. Now 20 years after that, there are about 10 seed companies who really dominate the market and together they have the control of more than 40% of the world market.'
Leading Seed Companies
Not all of the leading seed companies deal in GM seeds - at the moment. But the rate of merging and consolidation has been increasing over the same period during which genetically engineered crops began to be developed and later commercialised. And a handful of the top seed giants are also the most dominant in creating and selling transgenic crops.
The big four companies are led at the moment by Monsanto which currently has about 80% of the genetically engineered crop market - the herbicide tolerant varieties and those engineered to produce their own insecticide. These were the first added characteristics or traits in GM crops to make an impact, with the farmers of North America and Argentina in particular.
After Monsanto, the dominant corporations are Dupont, Aventis and Syngenta. Syngenta formed last year - a merger of the agribusiness arms of Astrazeneca and Novartis.
Stephen Smith, head of seeds at Syngenta UK, says there's nothing sinister about the size of these companies - it just comes with the biotech territory.
'One of the reasons that the technologies are in the hands of so few is because of the length of time and investment that is necessary to develop something in this area.'
| 'It is only companies that are successful, of the size of Syngenta, that can afford and take the risk of such long term and detailed technological investment.' | |
Public Sector
So if we accept, for the time being, that needs of the different farmers around the world will not be catered for by the profit-seeking sector - What about the public sector?
National government funded agricultural research, or that done at the international research centres, funded by international donors.
According to Phil Pardey of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC - financial support for the kind of research and development that produced the high yielding rices, wheats and maizes of the Green Revolution in the 60s and 70s has been decreasing alarmingly.
'This lack of investment is something that we really need to bring to the attention of policy makers, both in terms of developing countries, donor countries and international agencies like the world bank. They have dramatically reduced their investments in agriculture and their investments in agricultural research in developing countries over the last decade or so.'
Diversity
Whilst patents and restrictions are not always enforced and undeniably millions of developing world farmers are too poor ever to be customers of Syngenta, Monsanto and the like, the industry can't deny it does have markets in those southern countries.
There are field trials of GM crops in the Philippines, India, Thailand and Mexico to name but a few. There will be large-scale growers who can afford the seed, or less well off farmers who may be encouraged to buy it with the help of national government loans.
For Richard Jefferson CEO of CAMBIA, a not-for-profit plant biotechnology laboratory, the most frustrating thing about the approach of both anti-GM campaigners and industry is that they fail to address the fact that there's a diversity of farmers in all countries, with enormously varying needs and priorities.
He set up CAMBIA to try and do a different kind of agricultural biotechnology - one that makes farmers the research agenda setters, not the company balance sheet or the well-intentioned genetic engineer in a university laboratory.
It's also about avoiding intellectual property issues getting in the way. CAMBIA's motto is “Democratise, Decentralise and Diversify” and one of their primary concerns is to come up with new technologies without the restrictions. As Richard Jefferson explains:
'We are big fans of farmers here…and what I see is that they are fairly excluded from the problem solving. You have to start from that. Instead of being a techno fix junky, starting with the gene and saying, “ We've got this neat gene what can we do with it?" We have to take a step back and say, “What are the opportunities we need to craft?”'
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| Seeds Of Contention |
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Broadcast over three weeks, Seeds Of Contention sets out to explore the issues at the heart of the GM crop controversy.
Part one examines the arguments that GM crops are going to be vital in ensuring food security in the developing world, as the global population rises.
Part two looks at the debates about whether GM crops pose a threat to the environment, or whether in fact they offer a greener kind of crop growing compared to the agriculture of the 20th century.
Part three investigates whether there are dangers for farmers from the degree of control, ownership and influence multinational companies have over GM technology.
To find out when you can hear the series in your region, click on our schedule pages here. |
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