Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
In the overall picture, the welfare implications (at the national, not the individual, level)
of restricting or promoting GM crops in rich, industrialized countries are quite limited.
There is no compelling need to increase agricultural productivity and the nutritional value
of food in rich countries. The most important bene
ered only in minor ways by
current-generation GM crops, but potentially by future GM varieties) may come from
reduced fertilizer and pesticide, use and improved soil and water conservation. However,
the biggest gains from GMOs in rich countries are likely to materialize in medical and
industrial applications. The needs of many developing countries are very di
fi
ts (o
ff
erent. They
are plagued by low agricultural productivity, rapid population growth, food insecurity,
and (related) disastrous levels of soil degradation and deforestation. Appropriate GM
crops could contribute to the mitigation of these problems (Brooks and Barfoot, 2006;
Cohen and Paarlberg, 2004; Conway, 2005; Victor and Runge, 2002).
Unfortunately, the transatlantic GMO dispute has forced many developing countries
to take sides and has crowded out systematic and pragmatic domestic debates in these
countries about the types of biotech applications they may want and need. At the policy
level, advocates of stricter GMO regulation appear to have been more successful in recent
years in exporting their approach to developing countries (Cohen and Paarlberg, 2004).
They have operated primarily in the framework or at least in the name of the Cartagena
Protocol on Biosafety, which was adopted in 2000 and has been rati
ff
ed by more than 140
countries - among them all EU member countries, but not the USA. The Protocol seeks
to protect biodiversity from risks posed by GMOs. It establishes an advanced informed
agreement procedure, embraces the precautionary principle (PP), sets up a biosafety
clearing-house, and o
fi
ers assistance to poor countries in implementing the Protocol
(Falkner, 2000). Many GMO-adverse NGOs and some government agencies, primarily
from Europe, have explicitly or implicitly used the Cartagena Protocol process to support
GMO-adverse stakeholders in developing countries and establish regulatory policies sub-
scribing to strict versions of the precautionary principle (Cohen and Paarlberg, 2004;
Paarlberg, 2001).
It remains unclear whether the current dominance of GMO-adverse support for devel-
oping countries will lead the majority of poorer countries to follow the EU model. In fact,
many developing countries have recently become more skeptical about whether GMO
policies modeled after those of the EU are in their best interest (de Greef, 2004). Surveys
carried out in developing countries (e.g. Aerni and Bernauer, 2006; Pew Initiative, 2006;
see also Hoban, 2005) suggest that stakeholders in these countries hold rather pragmatic
views, particularly with respect to indigenous biotech applications that would avoid eco-
nomic dependence on industrialized countries and their biotech industry. Positive atti-
tudes toward GMOs are most pronounced in developing countries that are at the forefront
of GMO research, e.g. China, India and South Africa (e.g. Gupta and Chandak, 2005).
GM-crop acreage in some developing countries is also on the rise (ISAAA, 2007). These
trends in developing countries may in fact bring back some sanity into the political
rhetoric of interest groups from rich countries about what developing countries want and
need. They are likely to push GMO-hostile interest groups into revising their claims about
catastrophic health and environmental risks that are out of tune with developing-country
demands and also the vast majority of scienti
ff
fi
c risk assessments. They will also make it
more di
cult for GMO proponents to sustain claims that GM crops will allow poor coun-
tries to leapfrog in agricultural development and achieve the 'end of hunger' (see, e.g.
