All the squabbling in industrialized countries about the virtues and vices of genetically modified crops means little, says the head of an organization promoting their use.
GM crop acreage is going to boom and take over the world’s farmland regardless of what people in the rich countries think.
“It will be the developing countries that will provide the leadership and the impetus for the increasing adoption of these crops for one simple reason. They need the food, they need the feed, they need the fibre,” said Clive James, chair of the New York-based International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, or ISAAA.
Read Also
USDA’s August corn yield estimates are bearish
The yield estimates for wheat and soybeans were neutral to bullish, but these were largely a sideshow when compared with corn.
“The growth in this technology in the next 10 years will be in the developing world, where it is needed most to increase production and increase the quality of life for billions of people.”
Once China approves GM rice, which he expects to occur soon, a wave of approvals is likely to move around the world as other developing nations attempt to keep pace with the world’s giant nation, James said.
ISAAA is a nongovernmental organization committed to promoting the development and use of biotech crops in and for developing nations. It argues the perceived benefits of biotech crops should not only be available to farmers in industrialized countries but also in developing nations.
The ISAAA is funded by philanthropic foundations, government agencies and the biotech industry.
GM crop production has rapidly taken over big acreages in countries where they are allowed, such as Canada, the United States and Argentina.
But only a tiny amount of Europe’s acreage is in GM crops because of national bans, European Union restrictions and strong consumer opposition in some countries.
But James said the developing countries that are most influential on each continent have already joined the GM wave. China has produced its own biotech cotton, which now makes up two-thirds of its national crop, and it has more than 2,000 PhD level scientists developing GM varieties of rice, wheat, soybeans, fruit and vegetables.
“China has already made the decision that this technology is not only desirable, but essential,” said James. “China will provide the leadership. What China is doing will be quickly emulated, is being emulated, by India.”
India now grows more than 1.2 million acres of GM cotton and its scientists are also developing a number of GM food crop varieties.
South Africa, the most advanced country in Africa, grows GM corn for feed and human consumption.
Argentina and Brazil are becoming two of the world’s biggest GM crop producers. Argentina is second only to the United States in proportion of farmland in GM crop production, and Brazil’s GM acreage has leapt ahead, even though GM soybeans were only legalized this year.
James said nothing will stop GM adoption in developing nations because governments and farmers want them.
The governments see modern agricultural methods including GM technology as away to feed their growing population.
“Organic agriculture will feed four, maybe five billion people,” said James. “What are you going to do with the other four billion (people that will be living on the Earth in 2050)? Let them die?”
Developing nation farmers want to grow crops that let them cut costs and reduce pesticide use. So long as the costs of GM crops overall are less than for conventional crops, they will grow them. On average, James said, GM crops are giving developing nation farmers $20 per acre more than they would otherwise make.
“That is a fortune for these people, who make $300 per year,” said James. “That’s why you have seven million farmers using this technology.”
The ISAAA’s statistics are often attacked by anti-GM groups, who deride the organization’s close ties to the biotech industry.
But the organization argues that because 95 percent of GM research is done by commercial companies, it only makes sense to work with them to expand the reach of GM technology.
James said none of the anti-GM groups has ever been able to show that the ISAAA’s numbers are wrong. They just don’t like them.
