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Why we need GM crops

Now there are hard data which I think we need to just bear in mind in this area of GM crops [see image on left]. This is the growth, total growth, of bio-tech crops worldwide. Here it is in industrialised countries; here it is in developing countries and particularly in connection with soya bean, maize, cotton and rape, canola; there are other crops: rice, squash, papaya and alfalfa, and the traits: herbicide resistance, insect resistance, and the combination of both.

In South Africa, the benefits from GM maize are illustrated by these black bars - the percentage increase in different parts of South America where GM maize is grown or here, another example where GM cotton has been used, which has a 32% higher yield, a 68% reduction in labour associated with spraying the crop and here’s an interesting development of a form of maize that has now been made resistant to one of the particular problems in South Africa, the European Corn Borer, which then gives a much better yield of the crop when it’s carrying this particular gene.

Now, no-one expects and no-one has ever said, as far as I know, that genetically modified plants will solve the problems of food insecurity – problems which we’ve created to quite a degree by anthropogenic-induced climate change, but many of us will argue that they should be part of our armamentarium. They provide additional options for the future. This technology can increase yields of food crops, it can improve resistance to disease so that farmers are exposed to far lower levels of pesticides and there is some interesting data coming out from China showing a reduction in the number of farmers who have been poisoned in agricultural pursuits because they have adopted GM crops. And also it is now possible to produce flood-resistant rice. Of course, conventional plant breeding will still be needed. There’s no question about that, but its impact is much less specific and much less predictable than GM technology.

Now, of course, there have been all sorts of exaggerated claims made, by both sides in the argument, and consequently one of the problems that has arisen is that some of the data have had to be suppressed. Look at these data that have just come out from Italy:

• Yield
conventional varieties - 11.0, 11.1 tons per ha
engineered varieties - 14.1, 15.9 tons per ha
• Increase - 28 to 43%
• Economic loss - 300m to 1bn euros pa due to prohibition of Bt crops
• Increase of health risk in conventional maize - dramatic increase in fumonisin levels, engineered varieties had between 100 and 130 times less of the toxin
Source: http://pubresreg.org

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