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Why genetic
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'Are GMOs essential for effective sustainable agriculture in a hungry world?'
Dismantling the myth of genetics as the principal constraint on responsible global agricultural production
Mark Griffiths BSc FRICS FAAV
( This paper is available online at www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/geneticsmyth.htm )
Two days before the last Christmas of the second millennium the London Times, as if firing a final parting salvo from the rapidly retreating values of the 20th Century, reported on the indignant retirement of Professor John Beringer as chairman of the government committee overseeing the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment in the UK [1]. Clearly angry at the poor public reception that genetically modified crops have received in the UK Professor Beringer was reported as saying that those who oppose their use in agriculture were consigning billions of people to a future of hunger and starvation.
John Beringer is Professor of Molecular Genetics and Dean of Science in the School of Biological Sciences at Bristol University. Unlike some of his colleagues in the scientific community [2] he has so far come under little fire from critics of genetic engineering for making false claims about the 'benefits' and risks of the technology.
The Times quotes Professor Beringer as saying that organic agriculture and "spreading around a bit of manure" were not going save the planet, feed the hungry or conserve wildlife. According to Professor Beringer: "In a real, hungry world, there are no solutions other than technological ones."
The implication arising from this bold assertion is that the main or only solution to such problems is 'improved' genetics. Beringer was of course making two important assumptions. The first is that the principal problem with global food provision is one of low yields, rather than issues of distribution, poverty, social conflict and waste. The second assumption is that genetic 'improvement', primarily the use of genetic modification, is essential if we are to increase usable crop yields and to farm more sustainably.
At a time when 78 percent of all malnourished children under the age five in the developing world live in countries with food surpluses, much has already been written about the weaknesses of the first assumption [3]. Less investigation has been made into the second.
Just how bad are our existing crop genetics and is their further improvement the only way forward? To solve these vital human and environmental problems should we be exclusively focusing on Professor Beringer's specialism of molecular genetics? Or should we be looking at factors affecting productive output from a wider scientific perspective? Are inadequate genetics really the limiting factor here? Or do they just simply seem so only from the specialised outlook of molecular geneticists dedicated to their own discipline, but not necessarily working as a practising agriculturists?
In an article printed in the UK's Farming News in the spring of 1999 [4] Yorkshire agronomist Ian Chalmers highlighted the existing gap between the genetic yield potential of many existing non-transgenic wheat varieties - more than 21t/ha in some cases - and the actual UK average wheat yield of around 7t/ha. Highlighting better crop establishment as a key factor, he pointed to one of his own clients in Lincolnshire who had achieved 18t/ha using an early sowing regime.
Under the headline "Agronomist casts doubt on growers' intelligence" Mr Chalmers expressed his long term belief that the limiting factor for improved production was not the genetic merit of the crops concerned, but rather the average grower's mental ability to understand the physiological traits of the particular varieties being grown. In other words the source of the problem was not technical but human. It would seem farmers needed to have a better understanding of plant husbandry, not access to better genetics.
Whilst most of Mr Chalmers' advice related to seedbed preparation and time of sowing a subsequent article in the UK's 'Arable Farming' in the autumn of 1999 [5] expanded the debate about the productive capacity of UK agriculture into even wider management horizons. Crucially it began to explore the issue of microbial soil management, rather than plant genetics, as the principal limiting factor in farm production. It might be said that if any farming publication in the UK was interested in the technological approach to 'solving' agricultural production problems as advocated by Professor Beringer, 'Arable Farming' is that publication. But this article by another farm adviser Bill Butterworth was refreshingly different in raising matters that the 'miracle' of post-war agriculture has so far largely overlooked.
Bill Butterworth's article focused on the need to address soil management issues as a powerful tool to improve output, reduce inputs and prevent plant disease. In an approach parts of which would be recognised by many organic farmers Mr Butterworth was quietly pointing out that soil health is crucial to the performance of crop plants and ultimately to low-input high-output agriculture. Whilst dismissive of the notion of 'going organic' (perhaps not entirely surprising given the nature of the readership he was addressing) he nonetheless focused on matters which also reside at the heart of organic farming: "When I was a student at Reading in the early '60's, there was a 'standard' textbook called 'Soil Conditions and Plant Growth' by E.W Russell. I still have it. It is a weighty volume. Maybe this is what we have glossed over for 25 years; the right soil conditions to unlock the genetic potential of the plant."
Much, though not all, of Bill Butterworth's successful experimentation with soil management has come from the use of biosolids (sewage sludge) on clients' farms. The use of biosolids in agriculture is often a source of much heated debate, particularly because of the potential for the unwelcome inclusion of industrial contaminants such as heavy metals - although the controversy is as much about the inadequacies of the way our sewage systems are managed as it is about the principle of returning human waste to the fields from which it originated as food [6].
Nonetheless Bill Butterworth's experience in
this area is exposing some important principles for farmers which
are likely to have relevance in a much wider context. He
identifies the nurturing and development of soil mycorrhiza, the
small fungi which surround plant roots, as the principal trigger
for improved plant health and output: " These mycorrhiza are
bound up with plant nutrition and diseases..... The soil is like
an enormous rumen, it is similarly complex and it is the plant's
'stomach'. The connection between this soil rumen and the plant
is all the soil micro-organisms and it appears to be
substantially the soil mycorrhiza which are the last link in the
chain. You can grow plants without them but it is much easier and
more secure with them."
Butterworth also quotes Wellingborough crop consultant Peter
Wright: "It is this biological activity which, if encouraged
by good husbandry, will allow the full potential of growing crops
to be expressed, year after year, resulting in more profit for
the grower." This, of course, is to say nothing of the
implications of this type of approach for the production of more
food for and by the world's hungry.
Genetically modified crops have been presented by molecular biologists such as Professor Beringer as the way to reduce industrial agriculture's chemical inputs and produce higher yields. In practice, however, the hoped for reduction in inputs from many such crops are proving temporary at best, and non-existent at worst [7, 8]. Even more disappointing, yields from GM crops are frequently lower than from conventional varieties [8].
So given their unfavourable risk-benefit profile [7-11, 30] why are scientists like Beringer advocating the prevalent use of transgenics in agriculture rather than the more holistic approach gradually being discovered by practical mainstream advisers like Butterworth? Probably the reason is that scientists will always inevitably tend to draw from the 'knowledge' of their own specialisms when trying to develop solutions to problems, rather than from a wider spectrum derived from parallel branches of knowledge. This is simply because theirs is the area they know and understand best (or as in the case of genetic engineering the one that they claim they do!). Inevitably specialists are often ignorant of potential solutions to problems from other branches of knowledge. Not surprisingly in this context, therefore, genetic engineering in agriculture has sometimes been described by its critics as 'a solution in search of a problem.' An equally apt description might also be: 'a problem in search of a solution'.
Nonetheless could it be that alternatives to the genetic modification 'panacea', such as those uncovered by Bill Butterworth, are effective only in favourable growing conditions such as those found in the UK, without a realistic chance of success in more demanding circumstances? Well, not if the work of Professor Jules Pretty, Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the John Tabor Laboratories at the University of Essex, is anything is to go by.
Pretty has demonstrated that placing soil management at the core of farming techniques using little or no artificial inputs is producing consistent and frequently massive increases in output on millions of hectares in parts of the world as diverse as Africa, Asia and Latin America [12]. These truly transforming results go largely unreported. This is because they are not being achieved through rapid turnover 'one-size-fits-all' technology promoted by high profile corporations utilising questionable business methods [13,14]. They are being achieved by individual farmers benefiting from self-reliance based regenerative projects which encourage thoughtful approaches to long term management.
When it comes to counting the social costs can genetic engineering really compete with such a 'dependency-free' approach to agriculture? It might still be argued that only the hi-tech approach of genetic engineering can have any hope of offering the necessary agronomic robustness required for crops to function productively in some of the world's more extreme growing conditions.
A couple of recent research studies raise some interesting questions about the validity of such assumptions. 'New Scientist' reported in November 1999 [15] that far from increasing output Monsanto's genetically modified soya beans were prone to stunted growth and excessive stem splitting in high temperature field conditions. This was apparently due to unintended changes in plant physiology caused by the addition of genes making the beans resistant to glyphosate, the herbicide marketed as 'Roundup' by Monsanto. It resulted in up to 40% yield losses compared to traditional soya beans grown in the same conditions.
Research results released at more or less the same time have also demonstrated that organic soya crops grown in high-stress drought conditions in the United States were in fact dramatically more productive than 'conventional' high-input crops. Their yield was almost double [16] thanks to less compacted and more water retentive soil characteristics arising from their higher organic matter content.
As if to make matters worse for the advocates of 'technology-only' solutions to world food production problems, additional research [17-25] (the most recent of which was published in December 1999) suggests that certain types of GM plants may in fact have damaging effects on those very soil micro-organisms which Bill Butterworth identifies as being the key to unlocking the genetic potential of existing varieties.
Under conditions of global warming ironically this suite of findings would place organic production at the top of the list in terms of solutions for global hunger, genetic engineering at the bottom, and 'conventional' techniques somewhere in the middle. Certainly it is recognised that the addition of organic matter to poor soils can improve many of their properties including reduced susceptibility to erosion [26]. Soil erosion is a critical issue of immense proportions influencing the future of food production in many parts of the world, and one which is often exacerbated by short-termist agricultural policy-making and practice.
Given the large gap that has opened up between what was promised from transgenic crops and what is actually delivered in practice, is more intelligent soil-biology management a better and more reliable alternative to genetic modification when trying to develop a sustainable strategy for unlocking latent productivity in global agriculture? Certainly the results Bill Butterworth's farmer clients in the UK have been getting seem to overwhelmingly outshine anything that America's blindly unscientific [27] adoption of GM crops has been able to deliver. Butterworth claims up to 80% reductions in fertiliser costs, yield increases of 45 -70%, and simultaneous falls in crop disease. This latter factor is especially interesting because with 'conventional' high-input agriculture top yields have typically gone hand-in-hand with increased risks of plant disease and higher applications of remedial fungicides, insecticides and growth regulators.
Bill Butterworth concludes his article in 'Arable Farming' with the following words: "Those who pay more attention to soil biology get higher yields and lower costs consistently. It does seem clear that not only can we sometimes get close to double the national average yield in a variety of crops, we may be able to do it consistently, across the farm and under a wide range of farming types. The pieces of the jigsaw are beginning to fit into place and it is the balanced management of the soil rumen which is going to deliver."
The truth here is that for decades the industrialised approach to agriculture has principally focused at most on only half the picture - what goes on above the surface of the soil, rather than beneath it. The key to unlocking the power of this additional realm of nature's bounty is of course intelligent holistic management, not the genetic modification of plants. By contrast in many parts of the world there has been a relentless mental 'dumbing-down' of modern farming for nearly half a century based substantially on the deployment of chemical and related 'technologies' which in practice move management intelligence off the farm and into the factory laboratory.
With the attention of advisers like Messrs Chalmers, Butterworth, and Wright, now turning to redress the on-farm biological and human balance have we finally reached a truly progressive and defining point in farmland management as we leave the 20th century and its urbanised reductionist models of agricultural production behind us? Perhaps as some suggest [28-30] the time has come to welcome back the special intelligence of the farmer's own consciousness to its rightful place at the centre of global agricultural practice. If so, the time would seem ripe to rediscover its unique connection [31] to the vast organising power of the natural processes which sustain both it and the soil from which our own physical existence is constantly re-created.
Whether or not to chose this farmer-empowering route, or whether to settle for corporate dependency engineered through the industrial intellectual property rights that attach themselves to the Beringer model of farming's future, is the most critical issue facing global agriculture at the dawn of the third millennium.
In the final analysis it may not be such a difficult choice to make.
Mark Griffiths BSc FRICS FAAV
Environment Spokesman
Natural Law Party (UK)
12 January 2000
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References:
Reducing Food Poverty with
Sustainable Agriculture: A Summary of New Evidence - University
of Essex - 2001
'Magic bean' transforms agriculture in Central America
Return to NLP
Wessex GM page
Why
genetic engineering is not science based
What leading scientist have said
about the dangers of genetically modified crops and foods
Will GM crops deliver benefits to farmers?
- some realities behind biotechnology myths
More web links on 'feeding the world'
