Bitter harvest — 30 years of broken GMO promises

What­ev­er hap­pened to GM Gold­en Rice? And wasn’t GM salmon sup­posed to rev­o­lu­tionise aqua­cul­ture? Three decades after the first GMO crops were plant­ed, Save Our Seeds, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with GMWatch, with con­tri­bu­tions from Beyond GM, explores the fate of eight GMO promis­es once pre­sent­ed as game-chang­ers. The con­clu­sion: bold claims, dis­mal deliv­ery.

In 1995, the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture approved the first Bt maize and glyphosate-tol­er­ant soy­bean, open­ing the way for large-scale cul­ti­va­tion of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied (GM) crops. The promis­es came thick and fast: GMOs would feed the world, reduce chem­i­cal use, and save chil­dren from mal­nu­tri­tion. Thir­ty years on, GM crops occu­py just 13% of glob­al arable land, and large­ly con­cen­trat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Most of the promis­es remain unmet.

The biotech indus­try pledged to “grow more with less” – less pes­ti­cide, less fer­tilis­er, less envi­ron­men­tal harm. GM crops were billed as a way to “reverse the Silent Spring sce­nario” described by Rachel Car­son in her 1962 clas­sic. They were said to boost yields, feed the hun­gry – espe­cial­ly in Africa – and save mil­lions of chil­dren from mal­nu­tri­tion.

Instead, GM crops have led to more chem­i­cal-depen­dent mono­cul­tures, more envi­ron­men­tal dam­age, and tighter cor­po­rate con­trol over seeds and inputs. Rather than lib­er­at­ing farm­ers, GMOs have locked them into a cycle of patent­ed prod­ucts and cost­ly chem­i­cals. Coun­tries that adopt­ed GM crops have seen an immense con­cen­tra­tion of the agri­cul­tur­al seed mar­ket in the hands of a few cor­po­ra­tions — those invest­ed in GM crops. 

Fac­ing pub­lic skep­ti­cism and unmet promis­es, GMO back­ers shift­ed focus. New projects tar­get­ed con­sumers direct­ly, such as soy­beans with a “health-con­scious” genet­ic tweak. Oth­ers, such as GM Gold­en Rice and GM Amer­i­can chest­nuts, were wrapped in moral imper­a­tives: fight­ing mal­nu­tri­tion, sav­ing endan­gered species.

But again, hype out­paced real­i­ty. Gold­en Rice, after decades of devel­op­ment, still hasn’t been wide­ly plant­ed or reached the tar­get mal­nour­ished pop­u­la­tions. And there is no evi­dence that GM chest­nuts, which have proven defec­tive, can help to restore Amer­i­can forests. These projects may serve more as PR tools than seri­ous solu­tions, giv­ing biotech com­pa­nies a moral shield and a rhetor­i­cal weapon to attack crit­ics and reg­u­la­tions.

What went wrong? Often, the prob­lem wasn’t just tech­ni­cal – it was the mis­match between the prob­lem and the solu­tion. Genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered her­bi­cide tol­er­ance, for exam­ple, could be expect­ed to result in overuse of chem­i­cal weed­killers. Some projects may have failed due to poor busi­ness man­age­ment or pub­lic rejec­tion. Often, non-GM alter­na­tives were already avail­able, cheap­er, and more effec­tive.

“In many cas­es, GM crops seem to offer no clear ben­e­fit – except to secure a patent and shut out com­pe­ti­tion,” Claire Robin­son from GMWatch com­ment­ed. “Many non-GM dis­ease-resis­tant crop vari­eties exist and pest and dis­ease prob­lems can most often be solved by improv­ing farm­ing sys­tems – not by genet­ic engi­neer­ing plants, which has proven inef­fec­tive. Why choose risky and patent­ed GM crops when bet­ter options are avail­able?”

Today, the hype cycle con­tin­ues with CRISPR/Cas and oth­er gene-edit­ing tools. The lan­guage hasn’t changed much. We are told these tools will reduce agri­chem­i­cal use, improve nutri­tion, and help crops adapt to cli­mate change.

But the real­i­ty? Of the few gene-edit­ed crops ever com­mer­cialised, one — a soy­bean with mod­i­fied oil con­tent – has already flopped. And despite indus­try claims that gene edit­ing would rev­o­lu­tionise plant breed­ing, a recent review found that only three gene-edit­ed crop plants are cur­rent­ly being com­mer­cialised world­wide.

“The promis­es of agri­cul­tur­al biotech­nol­o­gy are always mirac­u­lous – and always for some unde­ter­mined time in the future,” said Pat Thomas from Beyond GM. “The appetite for these biotech mir­a­cles is huge, but after more than 30 years, the plate is still near­ly emp­ty.”

Ben­ny Haer­lin, coor­di­na­tor of Save Our Seeds, sums it up blunt­ly: “For decades, we’ve been told GMOs would solve prob­lems like hunger, mal­nu­tri­tion, and cli­mate stress – to no avail. Obvi­ous­ly there are strik­ing prob­lems with the tech­nol­o­gy. How­ev­er, the under­ly­ing prob­lems of injus­tice, inequal­i­ty, and unsus­tain­able farm­ing sys­tems can­not be solved by tech­nolo­gies any­way. The way for­ward lies in fair, eco­log­i­cal, and diverse agri­cul­ture, not patents.”

The new web­site, GMO Promis­es, is a resource for jour­nal­ists, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, cam­paign­ers, sci­en­tists, and investors look­ing to under­stand the real lega­cy of GMO tech­nolo­gies, and what lessons should be learned as the next wave of biotech rolls in.

The web­site presents eight promi­nent claims, and shows what hap­pened in each case:  

• GM crops to reduce pes­ti­cide use and “reverse the Silent Spring sce­nario”
• GM cas­sa­va to “dou­ble” pro­duc­tion of African crops
• Fast-grow­ing GM salmon for a “sus­tain­able aqua­cul­ture indus­try”
• GM sweet pota­to to “feed count­less peo­ple in Africa”
• GM as “short­cut to cre­at­ing a tru­ly Amer­i­can blight-resis­tant chest­nut”
• GM Gold­en Rice “could save a mil­lion kids a year”
• GM crops with improved pho­to­syn­the­sis to “boost yields”
• GM soy­bean with a “health-con­scious” genet­ic tweak

You can find the GMO Promis­es web­site here