ICTSD Outputs and Activities on Biotechnology, Trade and Sustainble Development

Biotechnology: Addressing Key Trade and Sustainability Issues

B.1 Environmental, health-related and socio-economic considerations

Q4 Can agricultural biotechnology contribute to food security, poverty alleviation and rural development in developing countries?

Food security was defined at the 1996 World Food Summit as a situation in which all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. This ability to access nutritious food directly determines people's ability to meet their basic material and social needs. As the inability to meet these needs is a symptom of poverty, it is clear that food security is closely linked to the reduction of poverty. While lack of food security can be driven by low income levels, which are in themselves indicators of poverty, the access of poor rural people to nutritious food is also strongly related to productivity, prices and distribution in the agriculture sector.

In this sense, the nature and extent of rural development will determine how much food is produced; the sustainability of the agriculture practiced; the type of technology and harvesting methods used; how the land is owned and shared; how food is distributed at the farm, region and country levels; and whether food is imported or exported. The determinants of food security and poverty vary greatly amongst regions and countries, depending on the nature of the rural area in all of these dimensions, while the institutional and political relationship between rural production and urban consumers will also play a key role in shaping local circumstances. Notwithstanding this diversity, the debate on the impact of biotechnology on food security, poverty alleviation and rural development has tended to focus on the rural poor in developing countries and the direct impacts that biotechnology could have on their food security through agricultural production, along with the indirect impacts on income.

Insofar as biotechnology allows scientists to insert genes with needed characteristics - such as drought resistance or the ability to thrive in salty soils - directly into plant varieties adapted to local conditions, it could lead to the development of plant varieties that address key long-standing problems of farmers in developing countries (FAO, 2004). If farmers as a result are able to reduce their vulnerability to plant viruses, climatic conditions and other shocks, this can have direct impacts on their food security, by ensuring the continuity of their food supply. However, the trait that is introduced must be a trait that is locally needed, and it must be introduced into a locally-developed variety that also has the full package of other characteristics, such as taste, size or nitrogen-fixing abilities (Nuffield Council, 2004).

Moreover, genetic modification can be used to develop biotech crops that produce higher and more stable yields, which can give the people that produce it more food to eat or sell. Certain GM varieties, such as pest-resistant crops, can also improve working conditions in the fields by reducing the need for spreading particularly toxic chemicals or pulling out weeds for lengthy periods of time (FAO, 2004). However, it must be kept in mind that many small-scale farmers do not use chemicals, so the environmental benefits from reduced pesticide or insecticide use may not be forthcoming. It has also been argued that weed control provides an important source of employment in many developing countries while the weed is often used for food or fodder (Shiva, 2002).

Biotechnology can also be used to increase the nutritional quality of crops consumed in developing countries, including rice and cassava, and thereby address malnutrition, a key aspect of poverty. 'Golden rice' - genetically modified for higher beta-carotene content - is one such application which has attracted much praise and criticism from both sides of the biotech debate (see Biotech Headline 8).

There is also a range of potential indirect impacts. The use of GM crops can reduce pesticide costs, thereby increasing income. These cost savings, however, must be weighed up against other cost-related factors, such as the cost of the GM seeds vis-à-vis non-modified seeds, the cost of re-purchasing patent-protected seeds, the initial levels and costs of pesticides and other factors that impact on productivity and competitiveness (see Q29). Some technologies that are embodied in a seed, such as insect resistance, may be easier for small-scale, resource-poor farmers to use than more complicated crop technologies that require other inputs or complex management strategies.

Harnessing the technology for food security and poverty alleviation will also depend on the broader enabling environment for biotechnology development and application. The impact of the technology on agronomic practices and yields, for instance, is determined by a variety of non-technological factors, including soil biology, climate and socio-economic conditions. In addition, the producers of the crops as well as consumers must be willing to buy foods and other products derived from transgenic crops (Fransen et al., 2005). Regulatory requirements and other costs will impact on the revenues that producers receive which in turn will affect their income and indirect benefits, as well as the price of biotech products on the market.

Perhaps most importantly, there must be sufficient national research capacity to identify where new research and products are needed, evaluate their feasibility, develop new seeds and processes, and adapt them to local conditions (Cohen, 2005). This will require greater investments in developing countries' public-sector agricultural research programmes in which biotech-related research and development would play one part (FAO, 2004). Other experts point out that the delivery of new seed technologies to farmers depends on working public or private delivery ('extension') systems (Delmer, 2005; Spillane, 2000). Balanced national intellectual property policies will be required to ensure that seeds are affordable while providing adequate incentives to encourage research and innovation (Kowalski et al., 2002).

However, the reasoning and rhetoric of the arguments suggesting that biotechnology can alleviate poverty have been the subject of extensive criticism. The challenge to the linkages proposed above stems from a different understanding of the relative importance of systemic versus technical factors in the creation, perpetuation and alleviation of food insecurity and poverty. In a rift that has spread through the agriculture and sustainable development community, many southern civil society organisations, northern environmental groups and academics and governments alike have attacked the proposition that biotechnology can end hunger, saying that it cannot be a technological catch-all solution for what is a more systemic problem. While the supporters of biotechnology's potential to address hunger for the most part agree that it can not be a panacea, and should rather be an ingredient in the fight against poverty (FAO, 2004), some opponents suggest that the technology is at best incidental to the fight and at worst harmful (Orton, 2003).

Instead, systemic and structural problems are highlighted as the causes of hunger and poverty. These include skewed systems of land ownership, unfair commodity markets and fluctuating prices, poor access to capital, lack of a varied diet leading to malnutrition, displacement of the poor onto marginal lands and degradation of productive land through export-oriented monocropping practices (Rosset, 2005). Given that more than enough food is currently being produced to feed the world, the problem of food insecurity is seen as a problem of distribution and inequality that makes itself felt in rural areas through the mechanisms described above. It is argued that GMOs could in fact heighten food insecurity in cases where the GM crops are not tailored to local agricultural conditions or do not meet local economic and nutritional needs (as was allegedly the case for Bt cotton in India, see Biotech Headline 7). Critics suggest that resources should instead be used to support socio-economic changes and farmer-led participatory research networks (GRAIN et al., 2004).

BIOTECH HEADLINE 7: Bt Cotton

In March 2002, the Indian government approved the commercial planting of three varieties of Bt cotton amidst widespread protests. The Bt cotton varieties (BT MECH 162, BT MECH 184, and BT MECH 12), known as ‘Bollgard’, are modified to be resistant to the bollworm, a pest known to devastate cotton crops, and were introduced to the subcontinent by a joint venture between Monsanto and the Indian firm Mahyco. The move to approve the varieties came after several years of controlled imports, small and then large environmental trials and subsequent farmer and popular protests, supreme court cases, open forums between Monsanto and Greenpeace and, in October 2001, the discovery of commercial Bt cotton farming in the state of Gujarat even though the Indian Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) had not yet approved the crop. In April 2002, government-sanctioned commercial planting started in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In 2005, Bt cotton covered 1.26 million hectares in nine Indian states. However, the actual impacts of the GM variety on farmers’ productivity and competitiveness remain unclear, as exemplified by the widely differing conclusions on the crop’s success.

On the one side, several studies have concluded that farmers who adopted Bt cotton in a number of Indian states saw pest infestation rates drop and yields increase. In their widely-quoted study on the trial sites, Quaim and Zilberman reported a three-fold reduction in pesticide use for bollworm while sprays for sucking pests were found to be the same for GM and non-GM cotton. Bt cotton was also found to exceed the yields of non-modified counterparts by 80 to 87 percent. A subsequent assessment of commercial plantings also found yields from Bt cotton to have increased by 45 and 63 percent in 2002 and 2003 respectively vis-à-vis the non-GM varieties. However, while the study confirmed the significant reductions in pesticide use for bollworm, the additional costs of the GM seeds meant that average costs for Bt cultivation were higher compared to non-Bt cultivation (by 15 and 2 percent in 2002 and 2003 respectively).

On the other side, several non-governmental organisations, such as the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture and the Gene Campaign, have conducted research which they say shows that Bt cotton has led to lower profits and, in some cases, losses and suicides. They say that Monsanto-Mahyco should compensate farmers for their losses, and have urged the GEAC to cancel the permits for Bt cotton. Their findings suggest that higher costs of Bt seeds, which can be as much as three times the price of conventional seeds, along with higher spending on chemical pesticides to attack pests that are not affected by the Bt gene, result in net losses for many farmers. For example, a three-year study of Bt Cotton in the state of Andhra Pradesh by a coalition of organisations found that non-Bt cotton yields were 30 percent higher than Bt yields and had costs that were ten percent lower, and that changes in pesticide-related costs were minimal, owing to low pesticide use overall.

Sources: APCoAB, 2006; Bennett et al., 2004; Quaim and Zilberman, 2003; Qayum and Sakkhari, 2005.