Biotech crops feeding biotech giants, not the poor, warns Friends of the Earth International in a recently released report “Who Benefits From GM Crops? 2009”. The report demonstrates how biotech crops are benefiting biotech food giants and not small farmers and the world’s hungry population.
The findings of the report support a comprehensive United Nations assessment of world agriculture that concluded in 2008 that GM crops have very little potential to alleviate poverty and hunger. This is in direct contrast to the biotech companies’ hype concerning speculative future GM crops that may never materialize.
“GM crops are all about feeding biotech giants, not the world’s poor,” explains Nnimmo Bassey, Friends of the Earth Nigeria executive director and Friends of the Earth International chair. “GM seeds and the pesticides used with them are much too expensive for Africa’s small farmers. Those who promote this technology in developing countries are completely out of touch with reality.”
The report explains how the rising grain prices behind the world food crisis have allowed biotech giants like Monsanto to dramatically increase the price of GM seeds and chemicals they sell to farmers. Monsanto is the world’s largest seed firm, and has a near monopoly in the expensive “traits” incorporated in GM seeds. GM seeds cost two to over four times as much as conventional, non-biotech seeds.
“Farmers in any developing country that welcomes Monsanto and other biotech companies can expect the same fate – sharply rising seed and pesticide costs, and a radical decline in the availability of conventional seeds,” Bassey added.
Exploitation of the food crisis has been extremely profitable for Monsanto as well as for grain trading giants like Cargill. Monsanto announced in January that its quarterly profit nearly tripled, and its net income (after taxes) is also projected to triple from $984 million to $2.96 billion from 2007 to 2010 reports Friends of the Earth International.
Nearly 90% of the global area planted to GM crops is found in just six countries: the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The United States produces over 50% of the world’s GM crops; the U.S., Argentina and Brazil together grow over 80% of all GM crops.
Despite more than a decade of hype, the biotechnology industry has not introduced a single GM crop with increased yield; enhanced nutrition, drought-tolerance or salt-tolerance, reports Friends of the Earth International.
GM crops available today are best characterized by the overwhelming penetration of just one trait – herbicide tolerance – found in over 80% of all GM crops planted worldwide. Herbicide-tolerant GM crops have indisputably increased use of chemical pesticides.
Meanwhile, the hype around biotech crops has obscured the huge potential of low-cost agroecological and organic techniques to increase food production and alleviate hunger in developing countries.
Read the report: “Who benefits from GM crops? 2009”
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