Can we adequately manage GM crops?

GM crops advversely impact existing crop diversity, human health and prevailing disparities in our rural areas.

It was the so-called green revolution, which first began to emphasise the use of high-yield seed varieties, along with growing reliance on mechanisation and use of pesticides and fertilisers in agriculture. While the green revolution did accomplish its goal of boosting crop production, this happened due to capital intensive farming techniques, so the benefits of agricultural growth bypassed many poor farmers, besides causing adverse environmental impacts including land degradation, water contamination and loss of biodiversity due to mono-cropping.

Instead of paying heed to these emergent problems, however, a new technological approach was discovered which claimed it could insert genes from different species into crops for helping them resist disease, droughts and provide even better yields. While some of these genetic modifications target cash crops like cotton, it is the use of genetic modification (GM) technology in common food crops, such as corn, tomatoes and eggplant, which have stirred up the most controversy.

Powerful agribusiness lobbies have ensured the prevalence of GM crops in the US. Numerous other countries are, however, taking steps to either ban GM food crops outright, or to place different sorts of restrictions on their use.

Peru is among the countries to have recently prohibited the import, production and use of genetically modified foods in order to safeguard the country’s agricultural diversity and prevent cross-pollination with non-GM crops. Ireland banned growing of GM crops back in 2009.

Russia decided to place restrictions on the import of Monsanto’s GM corn. After a recent French study linking GM corn to cancer, France has also placed a temporary ban on GM corn. Japan has also restricted cultivation of GM crops. In 2010, Switzerland extended a moratorium on genetically modified animals and plants, banning GMs until 2013.

Other countries haven’t banned GM crops altogether, but they also place restrictions on them. Germany, for instance, requires farmers growing GM crops to maintain a minimum distance from conventional farms and holds them liable for damages if conventional crops are contaminated via cross-pollination.

In the case of Pakistan, BT cotton has already pervaded our agrarian economy, while multinational companies and government officials remain locked in a tussle about how to best ensure BT cotton patent rights. Moreover, GM maize trials were given an official go ahead, some two years ago. Since maize is an important food crop and is used extensively to produce animal feed, this process has raised several health related concerns.

Pakistan has also been thinking about introducing GM labelling to supposedly protect consumer rights. However, the capacity of resource-constrained countries like ours, to manage GM labelling, is highly problematic.

There are, however, powerful multinational agribusiness interests, as well as larger farmers who collude with them. They criticise placing regulations on GM crops as being unnecessary and counterproductive to the goal of producing more crops. While the growing reliance on GM food crops may help increase their own profitability, its adverse impacts on existing crop diversity, human health and even on prevailing disparities in our rural areas cannot be discounted.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2013.