The Use of GM Crops in Developing Countries
Questions relating to the use of GM crops in developing countries
In view of the amount of food available worldwide, are GM crops really necessary?
4.1 Some argue that GM food crops are unnecessary because enough food is already produced globally. Instead, they recommend that greater effort should be given to achieving a more equitable distribution of food.1 It is true that the world’s current population could obtain more than enough calories and most other essential nutrients from the global production of staple crops. 3,600 calories per person per day are available.2 However there are two critical objections to this argument.
- Most cattle and poultry consume maize or soybean. The conversion of fodder into meat and milk requires three to six times the amount of these crops than would be needed if people ate them directly. Therefore, the provision of 3,600 calories (or even only the recommended 2,000-2,500 calories), daily for each person from existing production of staple crops would require the consumption of meat, dairy products, eggs and poultry to be abandoned.
- The land on which to grow staple crops, and cash to buy them, would need to be distributed equally to all in the world, entailing considerable logistical and political challenges.
4.2 Progress towards such ends has been, and will probably remain, slow, as we pointed out in our 1999 Report (paragraph 4.8 of that Report). Moreover, the growing demand for meat, milk and eggs has meant that a rapidly rising proportion of the world’s staple crops are used for their production. This rise is set to continue.3 As for redistribution, political difficulties within, let alone between, countries would be considerable. In addition, there are onerous logistical problems to be taken into account. Costs for local and international distribution of food are high, and it may not always be possible to consider cultural preferences for certain types of food. All in all, while striving for a fairer distribution of land, food and purchasing power, we take the view that it would be unethical to rely entirely on these means to address food security. Given the limits of redistribution, we consider that there is a duty to explore the possible contributions which GM crops can make in relation to reducing world hunger, malnutrition, unemployment and poverty. We consider it unacceptable to reject such exploration on the basis that there are theoretical possibilities of achieving the intended ends by other means.
4.3 Providing farmers with, for example, pest-resistant crops is a more appropriate solution than the alternative of leaving them to rely on food donations supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP) or other organisations, if their harvest is destroyed by pests or viruses. The production of food is not just a necessity of life, but an integral part of social and cultural practice. A substantial part of people’s livelihood in developing countries depends on agriculture. We conclude that the potential of GM crops to benefit small-scale farmers whose crops are seriously affected by droughts, pests or viruses should be explored as far as possible. We have noted promising approaches in the case of rice (see case study 2), GM sweet potato (see case study 5) and banana (see case study 6). If such crops can be made freely available in developing countries, they could contribute to preserving the independence and livelihood of farmers, and avoid reliance on redistribution or food aid.
Footnotes1 Five Year Freeze (2002) Feeding or Fooling the World? (London: Five Year Freeze).
2 Prof Mazoyer in FAO Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture (2000) Background Document to Conference 5, 1 Nov – 17 Dec 2000 Can agricultural biotechnology help to reduce hunger and increase food security in developing countries? (FAO UN). Available: http://www.fao.org/biotech/C5doc.htm. Accessed on: 21 Oct 2003.
3 Delgado C et al. (1999) 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture and the Environment Discussion Paper 28 Livestock to 2020: The Next Food Revolution (Washington, DC: IFPRI). A further increase in the use of staple crops for animal feed can be expected because animal feed derived from meat has been abandoned due to risks associated with BSE.