Strained global food supplies would be even tighter if it hadn’t been for agricultural biotechnology, according to a new report.
The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) said the rapid adoption of genetically modified crops from 1996 to 2009 contributed an additional 229 million tonnes of food, feed and fibre production.
In its annual report detailing the spread of GM crops, the group said the technology delivered $65 billion in benefits to world farmers.
The ISAAA report attributed 44 percent of the benefit to reduced production costs through less plowing, fewer pesticides and reduced labour costs. The remaining 56 percent was the result of yield gains.
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Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, took issue with ISAAA’s claims.
She said Canada’s House of Commons agriculture committee recently heard testimony that yield gains have nothing to do with biotechnology.
“It’s the hybrids themselves and not the GM traits that are generally accounting for yield gains,” said Sharratt.
She also disputed the ISAAA’s savings estimate, saying it doesn’t take into account increased seed costs, lost markets and the cost of dealing with herbicide resistant weeds.
“It’s very clear that some of those savings are breaking down rapidly, certainly in the United States. Cotton farmers are having to resort to hand weeding because of herbicide tolerant weeds that their machines can’t deal with.”
ISAAA chair Clive James said the criticisms are unfounded.
The yield benefit, which came from a PG Economics study, is related only to traits and not germplasm. As well, the dollar benefit from that study is net profit, which takes seed costs into account.
James said the dollar figure is conservative because it estimates only direct benefits.
In China, an estimated 10 million conventional farmers have indirectly benefited from GM cotton because it suppressed cotton bollworm infestations, which also affects conventional corn and soybean crops.
Friends of the Earth Europe said the ISAAA report should be taken with a grain of salt because it is funded in part by seed companies. The group contends the report uses creative accounting and is over-reliant on slanted industry data.
“It ignores increasing evidence showing that GM crops do not generate higher yields or help to solve hunger but are actually increasing
pesticide use, contaminating seeds and food and destroying poor farmers’ livelihoods because of high costs and monopolies,” said the group in a report titledWho Benefits from GM Crops.
ISAAA said the accumulated reduction in pesticides due to GM crops from 1996 to 2009 amounts to 393 million kilograms. Friends of the Earth contends pesticide use in the U.S. increased by 173 million kg over that same time frame.
James said ISAAA is a non-profit organization that receives most its funding from philanthropic groups. He said he is confident in the acreage numbers, which are similar to government estimates.
Friends of the Earth has estimated that GM acreage in Europe declined by 23 percent between 2008 and 2010.
James also rejected the environmental group’s dismissal of industry as a source of reliable information.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. Industry has probably got some of the best data,” said James.
“They can tell you how much seed they have sold right down to the half bag.”
ISAAA said the best proof of agricultural biotechnology’s worth is the rapid adoption of the technology around the world.
The report shows 15.4 million growers in 29 countries planted 366 million acres of GM crops in 2010, a 10 percent increase from 2009.
Acreage has increased 87-fold since the first GM crops were grown in 1996, making it the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture.
Developing countries accounted for 48 percent of the 2010 acreage.
“This is contrary to the predictions of some critics who speculated, prior to commercialization of biotech crops, that biotech crops were only for the rich and large farmers in industrial countries,” said James.
GM soybeans accounted for half of the global biotech acreage, followed by GM corn at 31 percent, GM cotton at 14 percent and GM canola at five percent.
Friends of the Earth said commercial production of crops such as wheat, rice, cassava, barley, oats, sorghum and millet are still GM-free.
It said GM crops still cover a tiny percent of the world’s agricultural land and that herbicide tolerance and insect resistance are the only two traits cultivated on a large scale.
“The biotech sector is marred by public discontent and fails to deliver on its promises of new traits of nutrient- enhanced and climate-resilient crops to address the twin challenges of malnutrition and climate change,” said the Friends of the Earth report.
James said GM crops are grown on 10 percent of the world’s cropland, which rivals global rice and corn plantings.
ISAAA predicted 20 million farmers in 40 countries will be growing 494 million acres of GM crops by 2015, which marks the end of the second decade of commercialization of the technology.
“By far the most important new biotech crop nearing commercial approval and adoption is biotech rice,” he said. “Not only is it the most important food crop in the world, it is also the food crop of the poor and furthermore it feeds half of humanity.”
