The future of genetic modification in agriculture has once again hit the headlines, this time as a result of a donation of £6.3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the John Innes Centre in Norwich, to investigate the feasibility of producing a cereal crop that is nitrogen fixing.
GM is a biotechnology that is used to enhance the productivity of existing crops, normally through the insertion of a gene carrying a specific trait. No GM crops are grown in the UK currently, however worldwide in 2011 there was around 160m ha grown, an area equal to 17 times the size of farmed land in England. Will this revived focus on GM crops see a change in perspective on GM and the potential for future progress?
Opinions across the country are divided on whether to introduce GM crops into the UK. The most compelling reason for the introduction of GM crops is that the world will not be able to feed itself without them. The current rate of population growth stands at six million people a month worldwide. By enhancing the characteristics of food crops it is potentially possible to feed an increasing world population with a reduced environmental cost. Characteristics such as yields and resistance to disease and insects can benefit positively from GM, and all result in a greater return from less land. GM can benefit the nutritional value of a crop – an example of this is GM rice that has increased levels of beta-carotene which helps to negate the effects of a lack of vitamin A.
Developments such as this are beneficial to a world where each year two million children die from diseases linked to vitamin A deficiency. Crops can be bred to be more tolerant of inhospitable land, enabling the use of more of the world’s surface in areas such as Africa as well as increasing the yields on the more marginal land in the UK.
An example would be creating a nitrogen-fixing crop which would grow in hostile environments along with reducing growers’ carbon footprints. Currently the application of nitrogen equates to over 50 per cent of the carbon footprint of a cereal crop.
There are arguments that have led to a strong objection to the introduction of GM crops into the UK. There are concerns that GM crops could cross-pollinate and transfer their genes to non-GM crops. Firstly this could lead to uncontrollable weed species with herbicide resistance and secondly if this were to occur near an organic holding and contaminate an organic crop then it could lead to the loss of organic status for those producers.
The creation of pesticide and herbicide-resistant GM crops could lead to the evolution of ‘superbugs’ or ‘superweeds’ that become resistant to the chemical products used. This would then lead to the endless cycle of producing and introducing more harmful products to help control these pests, which would be both expensive and time consuming.
This can already be seen to a lesser extent in conventional cropping where farmers are struggling to control blackgrass in cereal crops. This has led to farmers having to look for alternative ways to combat this issue rather than chemical actions. GM has received bad publicity among some scientists, who fear that humans are a long way off fully understanding the DNA and genes of living organisms and cannot therefore predict the long-term health implications of GM produce.
Although there is a large amount of negative publicity against GM foods, largely on health grounds, it is hard to see past the fact that over two trillion meals containing GM products have been eaten over the past 15 years without one complaint of ill health. This view is supported by the British Medical Association, which states that there is not enough evidence to suggest that GM organisms are unsafe.
The arguments for and against GM are lengthy, however to take the whole GM package as one rather than evaluating each individual development on its own merit is the wrong choice. Each individual development through GM should be considered separately and the pros and cons assessed thoroughly, rather than considering all developments the same. The donation made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for research into nitrogen-fixing crops should be assessed completely differently to the investment into aphid or herbicide-resistant crops.
But why? Well, nitrogen will always be needed for growing crops much in the same way that humans will always rely on energy to power their cars. Many discussions have taken place about how to reduce the carbon footprint of cars through developing new technologies such as battery-powered cars which can be self-sufficient if recharged by renewable energy. So it seems only reasonable that more funding is being put into developing a more sustainable agricultural practice which will help to cut the carbon footprint in line with other industries.
This is in comparison to the research into aphid and herbicide-resistant cereal crops, which will lead to short-term gain in farming and lead to an unsustainable answer to dealing with the strains placed upon a crop in the growing season. However in the long term these aphids and weeds will become resistant to the crops and the chemical treatments and the cycle will continue from the start. The short-term gain may be extremely costly in the long term as tighter restrictions are introduced on active ingredients, and the long-term question to consider is will there be a product effective at controlling these species when they become resistant?
GM crops will undoubtedly continue to play a role in the future of farming, however it is important that it is not all or nothing. Each individual development needs to be researched and considered on its merits, weighing up not only how it will affect the growth of the crop but what additional benefits it can bring to the wider world and the potential long-term risks.
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