Action Briefing Jun 2003 - Jul 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Why GM food and crops won't feed the world

It is often claimed GM crops will help to feed the world’s growing population in the 21st century by increasing yields and fighting crop diseases. But GM technology is driven by big corporations for profit, not for the benefit or the world’s poor.

Hunger
The root cause of hunger is poverty. Most of the people in the world who suffer from malnutrition and hunger do so because they cannot afford to buy food, not because it is unavailable.

Complex social, political and economic forces affect peoples' access to land, money and resources. Factors like unequal landownership, the oppression of women, and low agricultural prices, much more than the level of food production, determine who gets to eat, and who does not.

It is not just a simple case of "more people = more food should be grown". There is more than enough food to feed everyone very well at present, yet hundreds of millions of people go hungry and nearly two billion are malnourished. Even in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, 36 million people go hungry every year.

Markets
Most GM crops being grown at the moment are destined for markets in developed Western countries. Soya and maize are used mainly for animal feed and for adding to processed food in the West. Such products will not help to feed the poor and hungry of the developing world. Another major focus for research has been GM cotton and tobacco, neither of which will help to increase food supplies.

Intensive agriculture
GM technology relies heavily on intensive agriculture and large scale cash crops - pushing out small farmers in the Developing World who rely on traditional and locally adapted crops to survive. The majority of GM crops at present are herbicide tolerant, designed for use in intensive farming systems, with single crops in large fields requiring heavy use of chemicals. Most farming in developing countries is small scale, growing many different crops and they often cannot afford expensive herbicides anyway.

Seed saving
GM seeds are the property of the biotechnology company that developed them, which means if a farmer saves the seed from one harvest to grow the next year then they are infringing the company's patent. This directly threatens the ancient farming practice of saving a part of the harvest to plant as seed for next year’s crop. Over one billion of the world’s poorest people rely on farm-saved seed for their food. GM seeds could end this practice, reducing the self-reliance of farmers and forcing them to spend money each year on new seeds. Farmers unable to afford this technology may end up in debt, or even poorer.

James Botham