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

Q5 What are the benefits of biotech products to consumers?

Consumers can benefit from agricultural biotechnology through foods that have less pesticide residues, enhanced characteristics such as nutritional value, or are less expensive or better for the environment. However, there is a variety of farm-level practices, research and supply chain elements that determines whether these benefits actually come about.

A large part of the benefits that have accrued to consumers from the GM crops most widely commercialised today have resulted from decreased adverse health and environmental impacts where GM crops have led to reductions in pesticide and herbicide use. For instance, the reduction in pesticide use by Chinese farmers who grow GM crops has been shown to lead to relatively less crop-related health problems compared to those who grow conventional crops (Huang et al., 2005). Changes in insecticide and pesticide use can also reduce adverse impacts on the environment, which consumers may value. Direct health benefits for those eating GM foods remain difficult to estimate empirically given that the average diet includes many non-GM items. The assumption that GM crops require fewer herbicides and pesticides, however, has been challenged by many biotech opponents and is clearly dependent on the nature of the crop, the local conditions and the agricultural system that was previously in use.

Consumers could also benefit from nutritionally enhanced GM products. Many consumers felt that they gained little from the 'first generation' of biotechnology, which focused on herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant GM crops that were for the most part used for animal feed or processed into by-products such as oils, rather than being directly consumed by humans (Dibb and Mayer, 2000). In response, the biotech industry has been developing the so-called 'second generation' of GMOs which have been altered specifically to make them more appealing for consumers, for example, by increasing the beta-carotene content of rice (see Biotech Headline 8) or the protein content of sweet potatoes. Plants have also been modified to produce pharmaceuticals, such as bananas engineered to produce a Hepatitis B vaccine (Kumar et al., 2005).

Consumers could also benefit from lower prices if producers of GM crops passed on the lower costs of production (Marra et al., 2002; Bredahl and Kalaitzandonakes, n.d). The extent to which GM prices are lower will depend on the extent to which other actors at different stages of the agricultural supply chain, including the seed breeders, food processors and transporters, absorb price differentials resulting from lower production costs, as well as any additional costs that might accrue to GM varieties owing to segregation, labelling, regulation or related costs.

Medical biotechnology has delivered a wide range of health benefits to consumers, including the development of insulin and a variety of other drugs and diagnostic tools. In 2000, it was estimated that 100 biotech drugs and vaccines had been approved for use in the US, and that 270 million people have used these products for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer and heart disease (BIO, 2000). As a result, medical biotechnology has gained consumer support similar to that extended to other medical innovations and is regulated using, for the most part, the framework established for regular medical research.

Industrial biotechnology has revolutionised its field and facilitated the evolution of chemistry, biology and industrial practices; but the distance between such innovations and final consumers has meant that, beyond lower prices and better products, the direct benefits to consumers are not often analysed.

BIOTECH HEADLINE 8: Golden Rice

In 2000, scientists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH and the University of Freiburg in Germany announced that they had developed a new strain of rice that had been genetically modified to contain pro-Vitamin A (beta-carotene), which is used by the body to make Vitamin A. The new rice was dubbed "Golden Rice" because of the colour given by the beta-carotene. Vitamin A deficiency has devastating effects around the world - including up to 500,000 cases of childhood blindness, weakened immune systems and between two and three million deaths, largely in developing countries. It was hoped that Golden Rice, by providing substantial quantities of the beta-carotene could reduce the pervasiveness of the deficiency. The research that created the variety had been conducted within academia using public funds from the Rockefeller Foundation, Switzerland and the EU.

Shortly after developing the variety and applying for an international patent on it, Potrykus and Beyer went in search of a partner to assist them in transferring the technology to developing countries, securing the international patent and settling intellectual property rights (IPR) and technical property rights (TPR) issues. In May 2000, Potrykus and Beyer signed a deal with the biotech giant Syngenta (then known as Zeneca) according to which Syngenta bought the commercial rights to Golden Rice, granted non-commercial rights back to the inventors, promised to undertake research to improve the grain, and agreed to resolve outstanding patent restrictions on the tools used to create Golden Rice and assist with the testing and regulatory process.

An IPR audit showed that there were 70 IPRs and TPRs belonging to 32 different companies and universities that were associated with the experiments and final Golden Rice variety. Syngenta assisted in organising the free licensing of the patents, including from Monsanto, Syngenta itself and relevant universities, to enable the Golden Rice variety to receive its international patent and be distributed to commercial and humanitarian users.

A Golden Rice Humanitarian Board (GRHB) has been set up under the leadership of Potrykus and Beyer to ensure that the rice would be available for research and eventual free distribution in developing countries. Under the terms of the distribution plan, which has yet to be implemented due to lack of regulatory approval for planting and use of the crop, farmers in developing countries who are expected to earn less than US$10,000 from farming would be able to access the seed for free without paying royalties. Through the two-tier system created by the deal, Syngenta would control normal commercial release and prices for all other markets.

The inventors, along with the GRHB, have repeatedly stressed that Golden Rice can only be one part of a multi-faceted solution to malnutrition. However, Greenpeace and other critics have described the new technology as a "technical failure", saying that the average adult or child would have to eat many times their average intake of rice to get the daily recommended amount of Vitamin A. Its defenders respond that it would in fact be possible for women and children to get the recommended amount, and that Golden Rice's supplement would be complementary to other sources of Vitamin A in the diet. Also, in March 2005, the GRHB announced that a second strain of golden rice had been developed with a beta-carotene content 23-fold greater than the first strain, through which rice could deliver more than enough beta-carotene.

Another question concerns the extent to which the beta-carotene in the grain can be absorbed by the body and transformed into Vitamin A. For example, research shows that cooking and processing foods with beta-carotene actually increases the extent to which it can be converted into Vitamin A in the body. However, the body's absorption of a single dose of beta-carotene as Vitamin A has been reported to vary from 4 to 55 percent. In addition to cooking and processing foods, other determining factors include the extent to which the person consuming the food is Vitamin-A-deficient (in which case higher absorption and bioconversion of beta-carotene is likely) and the presence of dietary oils and proteins which are necessary for the conversion. A recent study suggests that two-year-old children with Vitamin A deficiencies in developing countries would, through consumption of Golden Rice, be able to attain 58 percent of the recommended daily amount of Vitamin A. An economic analysis of Golden Rice furthermore concluded that the variety could provide substantial welfare gains by improving the health of workers in Asia and thereby increasing their productivity.

Greenpeace has argued that Golden Rice will not be able to address hunger, Vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition because it does not address systemic problems of access to and distribution of a range of healthy foods, and could in fact draw funding and attention away from more systemic solutions. In its statement announcing the release of the second variety of Golden Rice, the GRHB recognised that the GM variety is not a miracle solution, noting that "malnutrition is rooted in political, economic and cultural issues that cannot be magically resolved by a single agricultural technology. Golden Rice offers developing countries another choice in the broader campaign against malnutrition." Golden Rice-2 is currently undergoing field trials in India and the Philippines.

Sources: Anderson et al., 2004; Hess et al., 2005; Paine et al., 2005; Potrykus, 2001.