Institute of Development Studies

GM Crops Ten Years On: Hope Hype and Reality

19 May 2009 - Ian Scoones

A decade ago there was much hope and hype about the potentials of GM crops. GM crops were going to feed the world and solve poverty and development issues. It was claimed pest-resistant Bt technologies could reduce pesticide use and improve farmers' incomes while technologies for dealing with drought or nutrient deficits were in the pipeline. GM crops would help poorer farmers in the developing world, it was argued, with a ‘gene revolution' succeeding the ‘green revolution' of previous decades.

However some predicted disaster: GM crops would result in environmental and health catastrophes and global domination of agriculture by large corporations. Just as the pro-GM lobby could be accused of excessive, unfounded hype, anti-GM campaigners often generated doomsday scenarios based on limited evidence.

In reality a more complex and mixed story emerged. In some circumstances, some farmers have benefited from GM crop technologies; while others had bad experiences or were by-passed altogether. Nevertheless, despite the accumulated experience and evidence, wild claims are still made and false expectations generated.

GM crops have expanded rapidly in some locations. The annual assessments by Clive James of ISAAA show GM crops sweeping the globe. Although GM crops were planted in 25 countries in 2008, only eight countries planted more than a million hectares. About 98m hectares out of a global GM crop area of 125m hectares was grown in just three countries, by large-scale farmers: the United States (62.5m hectares), Argentina (21m hectares) and Brazil (15m hectares). The GM crops commercialised are primarily insect-resistant Bt maize and cotton, and herbicide-tolerant soy.

A recent book by Robert Paarlberg, Starved for Science: How biotechnology is being kept out of Africa, again makes the case for GM crops as a solution to agricultural development. Paarlberg argues Africa's poor have scandalously been denied the vital, life-saving technology of GM crops because of European anti-GM campaigns. He claims inappropriate, precautionary biosafety regulation is a major hurdle to the widespread adoption of poverty-reducing technologies.

Paarlberg's arguments have been picked up by policymakers and lobby groups, the latter arguing the ‘tide is turning' in favour of GM crops as a result of the political recognition of the global food crisis. New efforts are making the case for a GM solution, especially in the vast potential developing world market, through, for example, the industry-based Alliance for Abundant Food and Energy.

A complex story with mixed impacts

But are these arguments based on the ‘sound science'? Have GM crops helped small-scale and subsistence farmers to climb out of poverty? Take the iconic cases of ‘GM success', including rapid expansion of GM cotton among ‘smallholders' in India, China and South Africa; early extravagant claims have become more muted over time as reality has dawned. Dominic Glover's new STEPS Centre Working Paper - Undying Promise: Agricultural Biotechnology's Pro-poor Narrative, Ten Years On - reveals a complex story with mixed impacts. Glover shows economic returns are highly variable, dependent on a range of factors. GM crops only perform well in good varieties, GM seed start-up costs and technology fees are sometimes too expensive for poorer farmers, and major adopters are usually richer, with more land. Meanwhile the institutional and policy environment is vital: without support, credit and sustained backing, new technologies often fail.

These conclusions were predicted by many a decade ago, including by the prescient 1999 Nuffield report. Technologies are always linked to social, economic and political contexts, and the assumption that nothing else matters beyond the technical fix is deeply flawed. And contrary to Paarlberg's claims, a precautionary approach makes sense in the face of deep uncertainties, public concerns and contested politics. Robust, transparent and accountable institutions, emerging from policy deliberations involving diverse stakeholders, are critical features of any new socio-technical landscape. Such institutions take time to develop and cannot be transplanted from one continent to another.

Lessons for the future

The ‘pro-' versus ‘anti-' fundamentalisms of the GM debate have become entrenched, with discussions stuck in an unhelpful impasse. How do we get beyond this stalemate? What are the real lessons to be learned from the past decade? What are the realistic prospects of a pro-poor gene revolution? Five interlinked points are important:

1. GM is not the only biotech solution on offer. Marker-assisted selection and other genomic techniques offer important opportunities for enhancing conventional breeding through biotechnology. Investment in long-term, local, context-specific breeding and crop development programmes is needed.
2. Abandon technology fundamentalisms. Technologies are never isolated from social, economic, political contexts. Agri-cultures (pdf) - the many different ways farmers manage plants, their soils and the wider environment really matter.
3. Don't expect too much from the corporate sector. Major biotechnology companies are accountable to their shareholders, not the rural poor of the global south. Their business models are focused on widespread adoption of standardised technologies on large farms, with high unit profits based on highly capitalised operations. Most GM crop technologies are for large-scale, rich commercial farmers.
4. Put farmers first. The ownership of technologies and control of their development, matters. Involving farmers in priority-setting and upstream technology design is vital. Potential users of technology understand their own problems best.
5. Regulatory frameworks and wider policy issues are critical. In the face of deep uncertainty a precautionary stance makes sound policy. Appropriate regulatory infrastructure is a developing world challenge - each context requires particular regulatory and policy responses based on local evidence. Making technologies work for the poor is inevitably a ‘slow race', resulting in more robust and effective governance.

Ian Scoones is IDS Professorial Fellow and member of the STEPS Centre.

Image: 'GMO Trial Cotton Farm, South Africa'. Istock photo.

Related Events

Dangerous Ideas in Development ‘GM Crops and the Global Food Crisis’

Dates: 10 Jun 2009

Related Publications

• Glover, D. (2008) 'Made by Monsanto: the Corporate Shaping of GM Crops as a Technology for the Poor', STEPS Working Paper 11, Brighton: STEPS Centre
• Glover, D (2008) 'GM Crops: a ‘pro-poor’ technology?', STEPS Briefing 11, STEPS Centre

Related Links

• Read Ian Scoones' backgrounder: GM Crops 10 Years On