Multi Tasking Farming

The sudden food price rises of 2007/08 were a sharp reminder that secure supplies cannot be taken for granted. The recent flooding in Cumbria also brought home just how vulnerable our farmland is to the extreme weather conditions predicted to become more common in the future.  Farmers of all nationalities and scale face an unpredictable future as the world's climate changes. In 2008, a major study was published about the future role of agriculture in coping with and ameliorating future stresses in addition to producing food, fibre and other raw materials without wrecking the planet. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), was unusual in that its 400-strong team were not just scientists and technologists, but also social scientists and economists from around the world.

Their report found that no single technology can transform farming to be productive and sustainable and that socio-economic and political reforms are also critically important. The report also recognised that "business as usual was not an option", and fossil-fuel intensive farming systems must change because of their adverse impacts on biodiversity, water, air and soil quality, while also generating a substantial contribution of greenhouse gases.

In his piece for Future Countryside, Julian Little attempted to build a case for GM crops being part of the solution. He sought to blame "dysfunctional" regulations for the fact that Europe has failed to embrace GM crops with the same gusto as some farmers in North and Latin America. 

In fact, the overwhelming majority of countries around the world recognise that genetic modification brings new risks to health and the environment, so treat it with precaution.  GMOs stand out because they can reproduce themselves once released into the environment and have the capacity to pop up in the most unexpected places, as unapproved GM flax has done recently. 

Thirty years of research

After thirty years of GM research costing billions, there are still many unanswered questions about the unpredictable changes caused when unrelated genes are forced into a plant's chromosomes.  Australian researchers found that genetically modifying a pea with a safe bean protein gene resulted in the protein becoming allergenic. This is both an example of why most countries, unlike the USA, have adopted a regulatory system requiring applicants to provide evidence of safety before approval is granted and of many differences between GM transgenics and traditional plant breeding.

GM herbicide tolerant oilseed rape and beet were extensively field tested in the UK in the early 2000s and were found to trigger a statistically significant reduction in the food supply of farmland wildlife compared with their non-GM counterparts (ie, there were fewer weeds and seeds in fields).  As protection of wildlife is an important task for farmers, it was not surprising these GM crops were not approved.

It is important to keep GM crop production in context. In 2008, GM crops covered just 2.6% of global agricultural land, mainly concentrated in six countries.  Most of the world's human food is non-GM.  Only 1% of farmers in world (13 million out of 1.3 billion) have actually taken up the technology.  As the main GM traits (herbicide tolerance and insect resistance, 99% of all GM crops) were never intended to give bigger yields, it is not surprising that GM crop yields are no higher than conventional varieties, and in some cases are lower because GM diverts plant energy toward non-food outcomes.

Far from predictable, farmers growing GM crops have very mixed results.  For example, the early success of Roundup soya, maize and cotton is being seriously undermined by the evolution of weeds resistant to the herbicide, for instance Johnsongrass in Argentina and Palmer Amaranth in the USA.  One US scientist sees the arrival of resistant Palmer Amaranth in GM cotton as so serious he says, "We can never allow it to germinate."

Reaping the benefits

In its recent report, Reaping the Benefits, The Royal Society recognised that after a generation of concentrating scientific effort on genetic and genetic manipulation, there is a real shortage of scientific expertise in the other disciplines, such as soil science and entomology, needed to enable farmers to feed the world in balanced ecosystems with healthy biodiversity. 

This is not to say that genomics and genetics won't play an important part in the future, but GM Freeze would prefer to see more support for proved technologies like Marker Assisted Selection to aid traditional plant breeding to produce resilient varieties able to cope with a wide range of stresses rather than the uncertainty and risk of GM crops.

Any future government must ensure that UK R&D funds are allocated to ensure that we have all the knowledge needed by the multi-tasking farmers of the future.

Pete Riley, GM Freeze - 18/12/2009 Have your say

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