GM crops could provide $8 billion boost
With debate raging about the true benefits of GM crops, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) has released a report indicating that significant economic benefits to Australia’s regional economies will result from their use.
Australian legislation ensures that most GM crops are banned and there are currently no whole GM fruits, vegetables or cereals in the Australian marketplace. GM cotton farming, though, is now allowed in Australia with GM canola legal in NSW and Victoria from this year on.
Australia’s delay in using GM crops has been fuelled by concerns about the safety of GM food. Critics of GM food argue, amid fear that they could pose health and environmental risks, that there is enough food in the word without the need to take unnecessary risks. Advocates, on the other hand, believe they are a suitable solution to help feed the growing global population. And, with global panic over food stocks and high prices, expect the GM debate to intensify.
The potential economic impact of cultivating GM crops on state and regional economies was estimated by ABARE under two scenarios – adopting GM canola and adopting GM canola alongside GM wheat, maize, soy beans and rice.
The results indicate New South Wales will benefit most from adopting GM crops. Significant economic benefits are also estimated for other major grain producing states, including Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. All up, it is suggested that the Australian economy would benefit by $8.1 billion with NSW gaining the most with a $3.5 billion boost followed by WA with $2.4 billion, SA with $1.4 billion and Victoria with $1.1 billion.
Delaying the adoption of GM crops will lead to significant foregone benefits to Australia, according to the report. “Delaying GM uptake means we are forgoing significant economic benefits for regional Australia,” said Phillip Glyde, ABARE Executive Director.
“If the adoption of GM canola is delayed for five years, for example, the cumulative foregone benefits would be around a total of $97 million for Western Australia and $66 million for South Australia, measured in 2006-07 dollars,” Mr Glyde added.
The new ABARE report – ‘Economic Impacts of GM crops in Australia’ – was released today and can be found on their website. Funding for the report was provided by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry under the National Biotechnology Strategy.
Ausfoodnews.com.au would welcome your opinions on the topic of GM crops. Are they a sound solution or a danger to our health and the environment?
Comments that I prepared for my clients in my publication: “On the Boil”
The area under GM cultivation has increased by 12 percent in 2006, to 114 million hectares globally. The bulk of the production is in America, but there is rapid growth in countries like Argentina, Brazil, India and China.
According to Cropnosis, an industry consultancy firm, the market for agricultural biotechnology grew from about $3 billion in 2001 to over $6 billion in 2006, and is expected to reach $8.4 billion by 2011. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application reports that twenty-three countries now plant GM crops, with a further 29 allowing imports for food or animal feed.
Proponents of GM are optimistic because a confluence of social, commercial and technological forces is boosting the case for the technology. As India and China grow richer, the world is likely to need much more food, just as arable land, water and energy become scarcer and more expensive.
If it fulfils its promise, GM offers a way out of this bind, providing higher yields even as they require less water, energy and fertilizer.
Professor Mark Tester, a plant genomics researcher at the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics and fellow of the Australian Research Council Federation, believes that GM will hold benefits for the whole world, not just developing countries, as global warming is changing conditions everywhere. As agricultural conditions change genetically-modified crops will have an increasing role to play in safeguarding food supply.
If counties are to meet soaring demand for cheap food and prevent shortages then they must continue to intensify farming practices, according to Professor Bill McKelvey, head of the Scottish Agricultural College. Plant breeding – conventional and using genetic modification – was the best way to produce more food from the same amount of land. “Organic farming has a place but it will never feed the growing population of the world,” he said. However, Patrick Holden of the Soil Association, disputes this. “Business as usual” intensive farming would not be possible in future because of the fossil fuel costs and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with nitrogen fertilisers. He believes that organic farming could equal and sometimes even exceed the yields of chemical intensive farming systems. “The challenge that global agriculture confronts today is to research and develop these systems, because we are on the threshold of a post-fossil fuel era.”
The most important reason to think that GM has a brighter future, however, comes not from any of the benefits it offers s farmers, large though those will be. The big difference with the next generation of technology, argues Pioneer Hi-Bred, is that it will also provide benefits to consumers.
The Economist also identified the lack of consumer benefits from first-generation GM as the reason why anti GM activists could whip up opposition to the technology. But if future products offer things consumers want, such as healthier food, and address problems such as obesity and climate change, then GM may become more acceptable.
This is the nub of the debate.
Opponents believe that they will not achieve these results and that the only real beneficiaries will be the seed distributors, which, because of their IP rights, have a stranglehold on seed prices. As a result GM suffers from piracy and in countries like Argentina and China the hostile stance toward intellectual-property rights has been blessed by the government.
Other reasons given by the opponents of GM include:
• Contamination of non GM plants.
• Lack of credible evidence that the technology actually reduces the needs for fertiliser and pesticides.
• Plants engineered to be resistant to weedkillers could inadvertently lead to the evolution of impossible-to-control “super-weeds”.
• Health concerns including concerns that GM products will create new allergies harm the immune system or lead to antibiotic resistance.
Although some surveys show consumer resistance to GM products, a recent survey undertaken by Corey A. Neill (Purina Feeds) John A. Fox, John M. Crespi and Andrew P. Barkley of Kansas State University, has found increasing acceptance of GM foods by consumers in the US.
Consumer resistance in the EU and Australia is significantly greater, although Cranfield University’s Sean Rickard has predicted that GM foods could be accepted across Europe in less than 10 years.
Consumer groups are calling for all products containing GM crops to be so labelled. Labelling is already required in Japan and Australia and Germany has approved a “GM free” label which will be in use in the near future.