The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) is currently spending around £600,000 a year supporting the development of GM technologies for developing countries. The Department of Trade and Industry has also provided funds to an organisation which is transferring agri-biotech applications from industrial countries ‘…particularly proprietary technology from the private sector.’
At a time when there are widespread doubts about the safety of genetically modified organisms, and concern over their corporate control, DFID is gushing in its support. ‘GMOs have the potential to provide great benefits for people and the environment when managed responsibly,’ says a DFID briefing
paper(1).
Support goes deep
While the £600,000 figure represents only 2.5 per cent of DFID’s spending on research into natural resources, the support is wide-ranging. A DFID paper ‘Renewable Natural Resources Knowledge Strategy,’ dated May 1999, lists 42 projects ‘… addressing genetic modification technologies.’
Most of the recipients of DFID support are agricultural research stations, such as the International Potato Centre (CIP) in Peru, and UK-based university research centres. Private companies also appear on the list. A number of the projects are marked as ‘…predicting costs and benefits to livelihoods of the poor in developing countries from ‘terminator’ gene technologies.’
Projects include: ‘Incorporation of CpTI gene into sweet potato,’ which is being undertaken by CIP; CAZS – the Centre for Arid Zone Studies at the University of Wales, Bangor; and the Agricultural Genetics Company. A project entitled ‘Development of Genetic Transformation in Groundnut’ is the responsibility of CAZS and two other organisations, while the ‘Development and Testing of Transgenic Cultivars of Bananas Resistant to Nematodes’ is being carried out by CAZS and the Roseau Research Station, St Lucia.
GM crops offer benefits
CAZS is the name which appears most frequently on the list of those receiving support. CAZS manages the Plant Sciences Research Programme (PSP) on behalf of DFID. The PSP’s approach ‘…is that genetic modification of crops, when employed within the framework of biosafety regulations, can offer considerable benefits to the environment and to the livelihoods of those in developing countries who earn their living from agriculture… to avoid controversy and to aid efficient uptake, the PSP restricts the technologies that it employs to plant genes in plants, or non-expressed viral genes in plants… target traits are restricted to pest and disease resistance.’
Control of nematode pests in bananas and potatoes is cited by John Witcombe, manager of the PSP programme, as an example of the application of GM technology. ‘So far, no effective organic methods of nematode control have been found in bananas and potatoes. In all banana growing countries, nematodes severely affect yields so they are controlled, with limited success, by the application of environmentally harmful and expensive nematicides. In Bolivia, nematodes impose large losses and probably double the area of land needed for potato growing: consequently less land is available for other nutritional crops like beans. Biotechnology makes it possible to introduce a rice gene… into banana and potato varieties to control this pest in an environmentally benign way. Cultivating varieties of banana, plantain and potato with this introduced gene can result in reduced exposure of farmers and consumers to toxic nematicides, and reduce the pressures to cultivate more
land.’(2)
The Department of Trade and Industry has assisted the spread of GM technologies to developing countries. The Swindon-UK based Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which is funded by the DTI, gave £50,000 a year from 1992 to 1997 to an organisation called ISAAA – the International Service for the Acquisition of Biotechnology Applications.
ISAAA’s donors include Monsanto, AgrEvo, Novartis and Pioneer Hi-Bred. It says that it implements a ‘demand-driven’ programme that responds to the ‘… priority needs of 12 target national programmes in Africa (Egypt, Kenya and Zimbabwe), Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) and Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico); countries among the group of developing nations that possess a level of capability in agri-biotechnology and the political will to play a leadership role.’ ISAAA’s ‘first model project’ involved the donation of coat protein genes by Monsanto to Mexico for the control of viruses in potato, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, and featuring technology transfer and the training of Mexican scientists.
Some of DFID’s work on GM technology shows concern about the social impact of GM technology. It has for example, commissioned studies from the University of Birmingham and the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) ‘… to assess the environmental and social risks of introducing new or transgenic plant types into the traditionally pigeon pea seed production of small-scale farmers in India.’
(4)
Policy open to question
But there are unanswered questions about the government’s support for GM technology, not least – why does DFID appear to ignore the evidence that genetic modification may put too much control over the world’s food system into a few hands? Why does it ignore warnings that GM technology could damage small farmer
livelihoods(5)?
The funds and expertise devoted to GM technology research for developing countries could divert attention away from more pressing needs, such as, for example, the need to improve farming systems. ‘Too narrow an approach to food security issues is dangerous,’ says Hans Herren, director-general of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi; ‘Africa needs a broad range of ecologically-suited crop varieties. The concept of GM crops is not based on the welfare of farmers; GM crops will not feed the hungry, they will make them
poorer.’(6)
There are also clear gaps in the work being funded. ‘We feel that DFID should be funding governments of developing countries to help them draft national legislation to deal with GM technology,’ said Clare Joy of the World Development Movement. ‘The big issue here is that corporations control the technology; without national legislations, governments are not going to be able to control the corporations.’
References
1. Background briefing, DFID, May 1999.
2. Splice, October/November 1998, Volume 5 Issue 1.
3. Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy, DFID, 1999.
4. Clare Short, in a reply to a parliamentary question, 3 March 1999.
5. See for example, Selling Suicide, Christian Aid, 1999.
6. Speech to the Overseas Development Institute, October 1998.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 47, March 2000, page 8]