| The Executive Summary identifies five key challenges in the future of food and agriculture, challenges that can be summarized as keeping food affordable and our food supply stable while "protecting the most vulnerable from the volatility that does occur," achieving food security for all, using the food system to mitigate the climate crisis, and maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
The most interesting sentence in this part of the report is "This recognises that producing enough food in the world so that everyone can potentially be fed is not the same thing as ensuring food security for all." Well done! Just because we have enough food, doesn't mean that everybody is eating. Obviously our goal should be the latter.
The Executive Summary goes on to name two enormous failings of the food system today. First, the problem of widespread hunger and, simultaneously, widespread diet-related chronic illness (like diabetes). Second:
Without change, the global food system will continue to degrade the environment and compromise the world's capacity to produce food in the future, as well as contributing to climate change and the destruction of biodiversity. There are widespread problems with soil loss due to erosion, loss of soil fertility, salination and other forms of degradation; rates of water extraction for irrigation are exceeding rates of replenishment in many places; over-fishing is a widespread concern; and there is heavy reliance on fossil fuel-derived energy for synthesis of nitrogen fertilisers and pesticides. In addition, food production systems frequently emit significant quantities of greenhouse gases and release other pollutants that accumulate in the environment.
To have a major world government acknowledge all of that is totally huge. But what do they think we should do about it? And - viola! - on page 12, here is the one sentence in the report that is getting all of the attention:
New technologies (such as the genetic modification of living organisms and the use of cloned livestock and nanotechnology) should not be excluded a priori on ethical or moral grounds, though there is a need to respect the views of people who take a contrary view.
I would advise people to keep reading the bullets that follow that one. Here's the full section:
Box 1.2 Appraising new technologies in the food system
- New technologies (such as the genetic modification of living organisms and the use of cloned livestock and nanotechnology) should not be excluded a priori on ethical or moral grounds, though there is a need to respect the views of people who take a contrary view.
- Investment in research on modern technologies is essential in light of the magnitude of the challenges for food security in the coming decades.
- The human and environmental safety of any new technology needs to be rigorously established before its deployment, with open and transparent decision-making.
- Decisions about the acceptability of new technologies need to be made in the context of competing risks (rather than by simplistic versions of the precautionary principle); the potential costs of not utilising new technology must be taken into account.
- New technologies may alter the relationship between commercial interests and food producers, and this should be taken into account when designing governance of the food system.
- There are multiple approaches to addressing food security, and much can be done today with existing knowledge. Research portfolios need to include all areas of science and technology that can make a valuable impact - any claims that a single or particular new technology is a panacea are foolish.
- Appropriate new technology has the potential to be very valuable for the poorest people in low-income countries. It is important to incorporate possible beneficiaries in decision-making at all stages of the development process.
I think they answer many of their own questions here. In other words, they say that there is no silver bullet and that much can be done with existing technology. They also call for rigorous safety testing and open and transparent decision making, two features that have NOT been part of regulation of biotech to date. The IAASTD report, another recent comprehensive look at the future of food and farming, evaluated biotechnology to date, finding that despite decades of promises, biotech firms have delivered very little. That is, while promising drought-resistant crops or more nutritious crops, etc, instead they have only produced herbicide tolerant (Roundup Ready) and insecticide producing (Bt) varieties of crops. And, while claiming reductions in pesticide use and increased yield, there is no proof that current GMOs have resulted in either, and instead there is evidence that they have resulted in increased pesticide use. Therefore, since we already have many technologies in hand that can be used successfully to avert hunger, mitigate the climate crisis, build up the soil, etc, we should use those technologies (i.e. agroecology) instead of waiting another 20 years in hopes of the perfect GE seeds. The IAASTD report also notes that the current GMO varieties are intended for large scale monocultures, not the small, diversified farms of subsistence farmers and that GMOs are "locally black box." That is to say that once a GMO variety is invented in the lab, it cannot be further improved upon and adapted to local needs in the field by farmers, whereas many other agricultural technologies can.
I can also say, from my own experiences and research, that hunger and poverty don't usually occur in a vacuum. There is very often major societal injustices attached to them, like the slavelike conditions many indigenous people in Latin America were forced to live in until recently and major inequality in land distribution (not only in the amount of land but also in the quality of land for agricultural uses). The IAASTD report targets free trade as one major source of inequality that should be reformed if we are to end world hunger. But this new British report speaks out against "protectionism."
A rather good summary of the new British report can be found in The Guardian. While it fails to critically assess the content of the report, it at least accurately tells what the report says. The journalist stenographer who wrote that article should be quite proud of a job well done.
The Telegraph did an even worse job, titling their article "GM food needed to avert global crisis, says Government adviser." Oh really, is that what the report said? It's not what I read from it. The rhetoric gets ratcheted down a notch in the subheading of the article, which says "Genetically-modified crops could help prevent a future global hunger crisis, the Government's chief scientific adviser said." So first it was NEEDED, but now it only COULD help. And then, in the article, they quote one of the authors of the report, saying:
Professor Sir John Beddington said there was no one "silver bullet" to the "enormously serious" problem of feeding the world in the future in the face of problems such as climate change, population growth and energy shortages.
He told BBC Breakfast: "If there are genetically modified (GM) organisms that actually solve problems that we can't solve in other ways, and are shown to be safe from a human health point of view, and safe from an environmental point of view, and they can solve problems we can't solve otherwise, then we should use them."
That is a very different statement than "GM food needed to avert global crisis."
And, then there's the UK's Soil Association, which rebuts the assertion that biotech is needed and that that's what the report actually said:
"We need to be honest about the failures of certain technologies - such as GM - to provide food for a growing world population. Despite billions being pumped in to GM, it has failed to deliver against its promises. The majority of the world is fed by small, local, often organic farmers. These systems are better for the environment, better for animal and human welfare, and offer more resilience to issues such as the rise in oil and fertiliser price rise shocks.
Contrary to the pro-GM advance publicity, the Foresight report contains much that supports agro-ecological methods, such as organic. In particular, it highlights the need for research in agronomy, agro-ecology, soil science and other areas that have been neglected in recent years".
Wait, what? The report actually supported agroecology? You would not have found that out by reading most of the news coverage. |
