Impacts of GM on farmers

In addition to the difficulties posed by patents, biotechnology companies promote GM crops to farmers promising better performance - increased yields or decreased pest damage leading to lower costs and higher profits. In reality there is mounting evidence that GM cannot live up to these promises, with increasing numbers of cases of lower yields and higher costs adding to other risks GM farmers face.

Failure to deliver

  • Weed resistance is becoming a major problem for GM farmers. By 2010 there were over 130 weed types of superweeds in 40 US states, including types from 13 species, that are no longer controlled by glyphosate (Roundup, the chemical used with Monsanto's GM Roundup Ready soya). The problem is rapidly spreading and is threatening the economic viability of GM farmers in North and South America.
  • Insect resistance is also an emerging threat. Monsanto now admits that Indian pink bollworm is resistant to the GM cotton designed to control it, and emerging evidence shows Bt toxins may harm non-target insects (like butterflies). 
  • Promised yield increases may not be achievable either. A study of university variety trials revealed that GM soya shows a yield “drag” (loss) of up to 10% on conventional varieties, not the increased yields promised by biotech companies.
  • Furthermore, promises of GM drought tolerant or saline tolerant or nutritionally enhanced crops seem a distant possibility at best.

Risks to livelihood

  • Cross-pollination threatens non-GM farmers. In 2010 an Austrialian farmers was stripped of his organic status due to contamination from a neighbouring crop of GM oilseed rape, and in 2011 another Australian farmer reported GM contamination after flooding. When the Austrialian Government authorised GM culitvation they promised there would be no contamination - it took less than a year for problems to emerge.
  • Beekeepers also suffer when their bees carry GM pollen back to the hive. Testing often reveals the presence of GM pollen in even organic honey.
  • Consumers around the world reject GM food and demand labels to help them avoid it. Farmers growing GM crops only have a viable market where GM food is unlabelled (as in the US) or where it is "hidden" (as in food from animals fed GM in the EU). New labelling regulations or safety revelations would jeopardise these incomes.

Corporate control = no choice

  • Biotech companies dominate global sales of seeds and pesticides through the systematic acquisition of seed companies, so dictate terms to farmers and limit the choices avaiable. 
  • GM crops are not used in small-scale farming but in industrial monocultures. GM seed can be several times more expensive than conventiional seed, and farmers are often tied in to contracts with a large company to continue to buy both seed and chemicals.
  • Genetic Use Restriction Techonoly (GURTs, or Terminator) prevents harvested seed from germinating. This ensures company profits are not eroded by farmers saving their own seed to plant the following year, as has been done for thousands of years. Terminator is a serious threat to farmers' rights, and for the billions of people in the poorest regions of the world dependent on saved seed it is a serious threat to their food security and livelihoods.

Feeding the world?

  • Biotechnology companies often claim their products will "feed the world" and that they need patents to protect their research investments and sustain profits. However hunger is caused by complex social, political and economic forces - not a lack of food but poverty. GM cannot address these issues, and may in fact exacerbate them by increasing farmer dependence on multinationals and decreasing agricultural biodiversity.

Summary

Farmers are put at risk by GM crops and the companies that produce them including through:

  • Risk of contamination or reveleations that their GM crops may not be safe.
  • Corporate control of seeds and agrichicals reducing their options.
  • The failure of GM to deliver on its promises.
  • Biotech compaies not yet being held liable for all environmental, health and ecnomic damage done by their products.