GM - an unsustainable, pro-rich technology

May 2022

Indian farmers first embraced GM cotton in 2002. 'Bollgard' cotton with its very own 'Bt' insecticide-generating gene, was heralded as a sustainable, pro-poor technology which would provide substantial benefits to smallholders. It promised reduced pest-damage, reduced chemical treatments, and increased yields.

In a country which contributes a quarter of global cotton, and has seven million smallholder farmers, Bollgard was a silver bullet to combat a key pest.

Within five years, however, the silver bullet was getting tarnished and the pests on cotton were ignoring it. Enter Bollgard II with two varieties of Bt toxin generated at higher levels and combatting more pests.

Bollgard II worked for a few years, but recently pink bollworm infestations have returned to Indian cotton fields.

In the biotech pipeline, we now have Bollgard 3. This generates three bacterial insecticidal proteins and there are fancier versions which are also tolerant to three herbicides.

There's not much sign of 'sustainable' in this succession of increasingly aggressive insecticidal cotton crops pulled out of the biotech hat every time the previous technology falters.

Is Bollgard a 'pro-poor' technology?

A team of scientists based in German research institutions sought to answer this question.

They used survey data from three major cotton-producing districts in India where the vast majority of farmers grow Bollgard II. Pink bollworm infestation has recently returned to some 80 percent of cotton fields there.

The study concluded that Bt technology was flawed from the start. It has built-in obsolescence because the constant presence of the toxin increases the evolutionary pressure on pests to develop resistance. This, in turn, increases pressure on farmers to buy ever-new products, and risk entrapment on a technology treadmill just to maintain the status quo.

Resource- and asset-poor farmers, who have no access to the formal banking system, become reliant on informal money lenders, often businesspeople, landlords or large-scale farmers: this means exorbitant interest rates and a serious risk of entrapment in a debt cycle. The net outcome is loss of land seized by local elites, and a redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top.

The winners, politely referred to in the study as 'economically advantaged actors', in this biotech-driven scheme are the seed distributers, money-lenders and large land-owners.

Conclusion: Bt GM crops are clearly a pro-rich technology.

A more real pro-poor technology with sustainable pest control, chemical avoidance and increased yields has been described by the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania. Thirty years of trials comparing organic with conventional (chemical-dependent) farming systems, including no-till practices in both, have concluded:

• Organic farming is sustainable. "The hallmark of a truly sustainable system is its ability to regenerate itself": the key to this is a healthy, living soil with steadily increasing carbon content.
• Organic crop yields match conventional ones and outperform conventional systems in times of drought.
• Organic soils store water and allow rainwater to percolate through to recharge groundwater reserves for the future.
• Organic crops are more profitable when a price premium can be applied, and are competitive with conventional systems even at conventional prices.
• Organic crops are climate-friendly: they use 45 percent less energy and produce 30 percent less greenhouse gases
• Organic food is chemical-free, higher in nutrients and therefore healthier.

There are currently over 17,000 pesticide products on the market for agricultural and non-agricultural use. In the USA, less than 1 percent of commercialised chemicals have been safety tested.

• Organic foods are diverse, and diversity means more variety of nutrients and more resilience to biotic and abiotic environmental stresses.

In organic systems there are up to seven crop rotations in eight years. Conventional systems rotate two crops in two years.

OUR COMMENT

The only sustainable thing about GM crops seems to be their ability to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Perhaps we should abandon our addiction to agri-chemicals and high-tech fixes in favour of organic farming systems? Bring all this to the attention of our agri-technology-obsessed government in Westminster.


SOURCES

• Katharina Najork, et al., 2022, Bt cotton, pink bollworm, and the political economy of sociobiological obsolescence: insights from Telangana, India, Agriculture and Human Values
• Why GMO Bt cotton has never been a pro-poor technology, GM Watch 11.02.22

Photo: organic cotton harvest in India. India Water Portal on Flickr