April 14, 2000 / The Age
Dr Gyorgy Scrinis, who teaches sociology of technology in the History and
Philosophy of Science Department at Melbourne University and is a national
spokesman for the Friends of the Earth food and biotechnology campaign,
writes that much of the public debate about genetic engineering of crops is
framed by the contrasting notions of precision and uncertainty. Proponents
emphasise the great precision and control associated with these techniques
compared with earlier plant breeding methods, and they like to portray
critics as ill-informed. On the other hand, critics of GM crops tend to
emphasise the unpredictability and risks associated with the release of
these crops.
Scrinis says there certainly is a great deal of precision in being able to
transfer or modify the particular genes or genetic characteristics of a
plant. But what this ideology of precision conceals is that there is great
imprecision and unpredictability in these scientific techniques, as well as
a range of potential health and environmental risks associated with the
release of these plants into the environment.
Genetic scientists do not precisely know the position the new genes will
occupy on the plant's genome, nor what is the relationship between the
introduced genes and other genes. There is also great uncertainty as to how
the genetic modifications might alter the composition of the crops produced
and other characteristics of plant growth, as well as of the broader
environmental consequences of their release.
Ironically, says Scrinis, it is the very precision of this radically new
ability to cut and paste genes from any organism to any other that is a
source of these uncertainties and risks.
The more common criticisms of GM crops - and those usually highlighted in
the media - focus on these potential health and ecological risks. This
includes the possibility - or likelihood - that the modified characteristics
of the crops will spread to other crops or weeds, thus contaminating
non-modified crops.
Another is that crops engineered to produce and express their own
insecticides from within are likely to harm some beneficial insects and
other organisms. Other unpredictable outcomes are where the genetic
modification detrimentally alters the nutritional content, chemical
constituents and allergenic properties of the food, and the risks associated
with inserting antibiotic-resistant genes and viral genes into plants.
But the obvious need for more caution and adequate testing is, says Scrinis,
being over-ridden by imperatives to quickly commercialise these crops.
To speak in these terms is to counter the proponents' language of precision
and control with notions of uncertainty, unpredictability and risk. But
aside from these unpredictable - and in some cases likely - outcomes, there
are a range of other problems associated with GM crops that are much more
knowable and predictable in character.
In particular, the GM crops being developed and commercialised will almost
certainly exacerbate the already existing agricultural, ecological and
socio-economic problems associated with contemporary chemical-industrial
agriculture.
For example, the engineering of herbicide-tolerant crops, as well as crops
that produce their own insecticides, is all about finding ways to maintain
and expand large-scale, chemical-intensive, monoculture farming systems,
rather than about shifting to more ecologically sustainable farming
practices, such as those characteristic of organic and traditional
agricultural forms.
Proponents of GM herbicide-tolerant crops claim that they will enable a
reduction in the use of chemical herbicides. But these crops will further
entrench and possibly expand herbicide usage in the long term. They are
primarily being developed to deal with the growing problem of herbicide
resistance in weeds, by enabling the shift to new broad-spectrum herbicides
which kill all plants with which they come into contact.
These new herbicides will also simplify the increasingly complex cocktail of
herbicides being used by chemical-industrial farmers.
Any reductions in herbicide usage are likely to be only short term - until
the weeds develop resistance to these herbicides, as they have already begun
to do. Some early studies of GM crops in the United States are showing
either no overall decreases in chemical usage or no profitability gains for
farmers.
GM crops and their accompanying farming practices are also likely to
accelerate the erosion of seed diversity and the tendency towards seed
uniformity, as well as intensifying soil erosion and salinity problems.
The claims by the biotech industry that we need these crops to feed a
growing and hungry world population are also fanciful. Hunger exists today
in the context of a global over-supply of food, so producing more food does
not in itself ensure that the poor will be well-fed.
On the contrary, to the extent that GM crops will favor the expansion of
large-scale, chemical and capital-intensive, labor-replacing,
corporately-controlled and export-oriented agriculture, the food security of
small-scale and poor farmers and subsistence communities will be further
undermined. That is why many small-scale farmers and farmer organisations in
Third World countries are campaigning against these crops.
GM crops will further entrench and intensify chemical-industrial forms of
agriculture, and the existing ecological and socio-economic problems
associated with them. Of this we can be fairly certain.
(posted without permission)
