CHRISTIAN AID ARGUES BIOTECH WON'T HELP DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Agnet
May 19, May 1999 AgBiotech Net http://agbio.cabweb.org/news/GENERAL.HTM

The UK-based charity Christian Aid says GM crops are irrelevant to
ending hunger. It also argues in a report "Selling Suicide", that GM
technology puts too much power over food into too few hands, and too little
is done to help small farmers grow food in sustainable and organic ways. It
asks "Are GM crops the next in a long line of inappropriate products to be
dumped on poor countries?" Rather than helping address world hunger, it
says that GM crops may, for largely unconsidered reasons, make matters
worse.
The report stresses that while hunger is a daily reality for over 800
million people in the world, its prime cause is poverty not food shortage.
"False promises about ending hunger" mean that GM technology will be
rapidly taken up, it says. "While companies claim GM crops will feed the
world in fact they are largely irrelevant to ending hunger: around the
world they are driven by commercial interests, not a concern to 'feed the
world' or raise productivity. The real challenge is poverty eradication;
land reform; water conservation; and increasing production by promoting
mixed, low chemical-use farming which favours naturally improved and
locally adapted plants." It criticises a "reckless concentration of
ownership" of seed and agrochemical companies which it says leaves the poor
more vulnerable. It argues that the introduction of 'TERMINATOR TECHNOLOGY'
world-wide will exacerbate this by fostering a farmer's dependence on
agrochemical multinationals and ending their own vital ability to develop
new crops. Christian Aid also argues that "biopiracy" of poor country
plants and animals could increase under the evolving international legal
framework developing post Rio. It says this framework is designed to
protect the products of US biotech corporations.
It says that GM crops currently not grown commercially in Europe are
being promoted in developing countries: as early as 2001-2002, more land is
projected to be planted with GM crops in the South than the North. It sees
the recent international trade dispute over bananas as a prelude to forcing
GM crops on poor countries: the charity believes that disagreements could
see international trade rules used to force poor countries to accept GM
crops and food, taking away their right to choose.
"GM crops are taking us down a dangerous farm track creating classic
preconditions for hunger and famine: ownership of resources concentrated in
too few hands - inherent in farming based on patented proprietary products
- and a food supply based on too few varieties of crops widely planted, are
the worst option for food security. The new techniques also leave untouched
growing gaps between rich and poor."
The report acknowledges that genetic engineering may, "under highly
specific circumstances", have something to offer poor people and poor
farmers, but says that "it is very doubtful that those conditions exist."
It says that apart from environmental and health concerns several questions
must be asked of any new crop. Just a few are: does it fit into prevailing
farming practices how does a new variety perform in multiple cropping does
it retain traditional side uses what is its impact on the soil how does it
fit the need for employment.
Christain Aid suggests such questions have not been asked of GM crops.
"It is not necessary that genetic engineering should contribute to an
agriculture that might create unemployment; leave people landless and in
debt; damage the environment; tend to monopoly control by large companies;
be of dubious long-term benefit to consumers; deny the viability of other,
proven, sustainable farming systems; and be expensive to small farmers. It
does not have to be like this; it just so happens that, in real life, it
is," says the report. http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/