GM Technology Opposed and Food Problems Unresolved: Organic Agriculture Q&A 02

Author: Guo Huaren (Professor, Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, China)

One of the four principles of organic agriculture is "care," which does not reject new technology but calls for a precautionary and responsible attitude toward it in order to protect the environment and the health and well-being of humans in this life and the next. GM technology can cause unpredictable traits in crops, which may harm consumers; it may already have harmed the environment, such as by leading to greater pesticide use and the emergence of superweeds and superpests. Another principle of organic agriculture is "fairness," which requires attention to equity, respect, justice and care for farmers, workers, processors, distributors and traders, consumers and other living creatures.

But the history of many years of GM crop cultivation tells us that the only ones making big money are the large conglomerates that develop GM seeds, while farmers in developed countries earn little, and in India it has even led GM cotton farmers to be unable to repay loans for GM seeds, causing a wave of suicides, clearly violating the fairness principle of organic agriculture.

Some people promote GM crops, claiming that only by relying heavily on GM crops can the world's food shortage problem be solved. In fact, these are all biased statements. Current total world food production is enough to feed 9.5 billion people; the reason hunger exists is uneven food distribution and poverty that makes food unaffordable. GM seeds are made by money-burning GM technology, and it is only profitable to sell seeds at high prices through patents, technology transfer and the like. Hungry countries do not even have enough money to buy seeds, fertilizer and pesticides, so how could they afford high-priced GM seeds? Moreover, insect-resistant and herbicide-resistant GM crops are not aimed at increasing yield, and their yields are often inferior to those of ordinary crop varieties. For poor countries to raise agricultural productivity, they can only adopt organic and ecological farming methods that can produce without external inputs.

[Organic Agriculture Q&A] 01 - Why do we need organic agriculture to ensure food production?