The Future (47 page)

In general, farmers using the first wave of GM crops
report initial reductions in their cost of production—partly due to temporarily lower use of insecticide—and temporarily lower losses to insects or weeds. The bulk of the economic benefits thus far have gone to cotton farmers using a
strain that is engineered to produce its own insecticide (
Bacillus thuringiensis
, better known as Bt).
In India the new Bt cotton made the nation a net exporter, rather than importer, of cotton and was a factor in the initial doubling of cotton yields because of temporarily lower losses to insects and weeds. However, many Indian cotton farmers
have begun to protest the high cost of the GM seeds they must purchase anew each year and the high cost of the herbicides they must use in greater volumes
as more weeds develop resistance. A parliamentary panel in India issued a controversial 2012 report asserting that
“there is a connection between Bt cotton and farmers’ suicides” and recommending
that field trials of GM crops “under any garb should be discontinued forthwith.”

New scientific studies—including a comprehensive report by the U.S. National Research Council in 2009—support the criticism by opponents of GM crops that the
intrinsic
yields of the crops themselves are not increased at all. To the contrary, some farmers have experienced slightly lower intrinsic yields because of
unexpected collateral changes in the plants’ genetic code. Selective breeding, on the other hand, was responsible for the impressive and life-saving yield increases of the Green Revolution. New research by an Israeli company, Kaiima, into a non-GMO technology known as “enhanced ploidy” (the inducement, selective breeding, and natural enhancement of a trait that confers more than two sets of chromosomes in each cell nucleus) is producing
both greater yields and greater resistance to the effects of drought in a variety of food and other crops. Recent field trials run by Kaiima show more than 20 percent yield enhancement in corn and more than 40 percent enhancement in wheat.

The genetic modification of crops, by contrast, has not yet produced meaningful enhancements of survivability during drought. While some GM experimental strains do, in theory,
offer the promise of increased yields during dry periods, these strains have not yet been introduced on a commercial scale, and test plots have demonstrated only slight yield improvements thus far, and only during
mild
drought conditions. Because of the growing prevalence of drought due to global warming, there is
tremendous interest in drought-resistant strains, especially for maize, wheat, and other crops in developing countries. Unfortunately, however, drought resistance is turning out to be an extremely complex challenge for plant geneticists, involving a combination of many
genes working together in complicated ways that are not yet well understood.

After an extensive analysis of the progress in genetically engineering drought-resistant crops, the Union of Concerned Scientists found “little evidence of progress in making crops more water efficient. We also found that the overall prospects for genetic engineering to significantly address agriculture’s drought and water-use challenges are
limited at best.”

The second wave of GM crops involves the
introduction of genes that enhance the nutrient value of the plants. It includes the engineering
of
higher protein content in corn (maize) that is used primarily for livestock feed, and the engineering of a
new strain of rice that produces extra vitamin A as part of a strategy to combat the deficiency in vitamin A that now affects approximately 250 million children around the world. This second wave also involves the introduction of genes that are designed to
enhance the resistance of plants to particular fungi and viruses.

The third wave of GM crops, which is just beginning to be commercialized, involves the modification of plants through the introduction of genes that program the production of substances within the plants that have commercial value as inputs in other processes, including pharmaceutical inputs and biopolymers for the production of bioplastics that are biodegradable and easily recyclable. This third wave also involves an effort to introduce genes that modify plants
with high cellulose and lignin in order to make them easier to process for the production of cellulosic ethanol. The so-called green plastics have exciting promise, but as with crops devoted to the production of biofuels, they raise questions about how much arable land can safely or wisely be diverted from the production of food
in a world with growing population and food consumption, and shrinking assets of topsoil and water for agriculture.

Over the next two decades, seed scientists believe that they may be able to launch a fourth wave of GM crops by inserting the photosynthesizing genes of corn (and other so-called C4 plants) that are more efficient in photosynthesizing light into energy in plants like wheat and rice (and other C3 plants). If they succeed—which is far from certain
because of the unprecedented complexity of the challenge—this technique could indeed bring about significant intrinsic yield increases. For the time being however, the overall net benefits from genetically engineered crops have been limited to a
temporary reduction in losses to pests and a temporary decrease in expenditures for insecticides.

In 2012, the Obama administration in the U.S. launched its
National Bioeconomy Blueprint, specifically designed to stimulate the production—and procurement by the government—of such products. The European Commission adopted a similar strategy two months earlier. Some environmental groups have criticized both plans because of the growing concern about diverting cropland away from food production and the destruction of tropical forests to make way for more cropland.

The opponents of genetically modified crops argue that not only
have these genetic technologies failed thus far to increase intrinsic yields, but also that the weeds and insects the GM crops are designed to control are quickly mutating to
make themselves impervious to the herbicides and insecticides in question. In particular, the crops that are engineered to produce their own insecticide (
Bacillus thuringiensis
) are now so common that the constant diet of Bt being served to pests in large monocultured fields is doing the same thing to insects that the massive and constant use of antibiotics is doing to germs in the guts of livestock: it is
forcing the mutation of new strains of pests that are highly resistant to the insecticide.

The same thing also appears to be happening to weeds that are constantly sprayed with herbicides to protect crops that have been
genetically engineered to survive application of the herbicide (including principally Monsanto’s Roundup, which is based on glyphosate, which used to kill virtually any green plant). Already, ten species of harmful weeds have evolved a resistance to these herbicides, requiring farmers to use other more toxic herbicides. Some opponents of GM crops have marshaled evidence tending to show that over time, as resistance
increases among weeds and insects, the overall use of both herbicides and pesticides actually increases,
though advocates of GM crops dispute their analysis.

Because so many weeds have now developed resistance to glyphosate (most commonly used in Roundup), there is a renewed market demand for more powerful—
and more dangerous—herbicides. There are certainly plenty to choose from. The overall market for pesticides in the world represents approximately $40 billion in sales annually, with herbicides aimed at weeds representing
$17.5 billion and both insecticides and fungicides representing about $10.5 billion each.

Dow AgroSciences has applied for regulatory approval to launch a new genetically engineered form of corn that tolerates the application of a pesticide known as 2,4-D, which was a key ingredient in Agent Orange—the deadly herbicide used by the
U.S. Air Force to clear jungles and forest cover during the Vietnam War—which has been implicated in numerous health problems suffered by both Americans and Vietnamese who were exposed to it. Health experts from more than 140 NGOs have opposed the approval of what they call “Agent Orange corn,” citing links between exposure to 2,4-D and “major health problems such as cancer,
lowered sperm counts, liver toxicity and Parkinson’s disease. Lab studies show that 2,4-D causes
endocrine disruption, reproductive problems, neurotoxicity, and immunosuppression.”

Insecticides that are sprayed on crops have also been implicated in damage to beneficial insects and other animals. The milkweed plants on which monarch butterflies almost exclusively depend have declined in the
U.S. farm belt by almost 60 percent over the last decade, principally because of the expansion of
cropland dedicated to crop varieties engineered to be tolerant of Roundup. There have been studies showing that Bt crops (the ones that produce insecticide) have had a direct
harmful impact on at least one subspecies of monarchs, and on lacewings (considered highly beneficial insects), ladybird beetles, and beneficial biota in the soil.
Although proponents of GM crops have minimized the importance of these effects, they deserve close scrutiny as GM crops continue to expand their role in the world’s food production.

Most recently, scientists have attributed the disturbing and previously mysterious sudden collapses of bee colonies to
a new group of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) has caused deep concern among beekeepers and others
since the affliction first appeared in 2006. Although numerous theories about the cause of CCD were put forward, it was not until the spring of 2012 that several studies pinpointed the cause.

The neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxins similar in their makeup to nicotine, are widely used on corn seed, and the chemicals are then pulled from the seed into the corn plants as they grow. Commercial beekeepers, in turn, have long fed corn syrup to their bees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, “Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion in added crop value, particularly for specialty crops such as almonds and other nuts, berries, fruits, and vegetables.
About one mouthful in three in the diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination.”

Bees, of course, play no role in the pollination of GM crops,
because the engineered seeds must be purchased annually by farmers, and the bees’ pesky habit of pollinating plants
can introduce genes that do not fit into the seed company’s design. According to
The Wall Street Journal
, the growers of a modified seedless mandarin threatened to sue beekeepers working with neighboring farms for allowing their bees to “trespass” into the orchards where the seedless mandarins were growing, out of
worry that the seedless mandarins would be cross-pollinated
with pollen from citrus varieties that have seeds. Understandably, the beekeepers protested that they couldn’t control where their bees fly.

The global spread of industrial agriculture techniques has resulted in the increased reliance on monoculture, which has, in turn, accelerated the spread of resistance to herbicides and pesticides in weeds, insects, and plant diseases. In many countries, including the United States,
all of the major commodity crops—corn, soybeans, cotton, and wheat—are grown from a small handful of genetic varieties. As a result, in most fields, virtually all of the plants are genetically identical. Some experts have long expressed concern that the
reliance on monocultures makes agriculture highly vulnerable to pests and plant diseases that have too many opportunities to develop mutations that enable them to become more efficient at attacking the particular genetic variety that is planted in such abundance.

In any case, new versions of plant diseases are causing problems for farmers all over the world. In 1999, a new mutated variety of an old fungal disease known as
stem rust began attacking wheat fields in Uganda. Spores from the African fields were carried on the wind first to neighboring Kenya, then across the Red Sea to Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, and from there to Iran. Plant scientists are concerned that it will continue spreading in Africa, Asia, and perhaps beyond. Two scientific experts on the disease, Peter Njao and Ruth Wanyera, expressed concern in 2012 that it could potentially destroy 80 percent of all known wheat varieties. Although this wheat rust was believed to be reduced to a minor threat a half century ago, the new mutation has made it deadlier than ever.

Similarly, cassava (also known as tapioca, manioc, and yucca), the third-largest plant-based source of calories for people (after rice and wheat), is consumed mostly in Africa, South America, and Asia. It developed a new mutation in East Africa in 2005, and since then, according to Claude Fauquet, who is the director of cassava research at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, “There has been explosive, pandemic-style spread.…
The speed is just unprecedented, and the farmers are really desperate.” Some experts have compared this outbreak to the potato blight in Ireland in the 1840s, which was linked
in part to
Ireland’s heavy reliance on a monocultured potato strain from the Andes.

Sixty percent of the U.S. corn crop was
destroyed in 1970 by a new variety of Southern corn leaf blight, demonstrating clearly, in the words of the Union of Concerned Scientists, “that a genetically uniform crop base is a disaster waiting to happen.” The UCS notes that “U.S. agriculture rests on a narrow genetic base. At the beginning of the 1990s, only six varieties of corn accounted for 46 percent of the crop, nine varieties of wheat made up half of the wheat crop, and two types of peas made up 96 percent of the pea crop. Reflecting the global success of fast food in the age of Earth Inc., more than half the world’s potato acreage is now planted with one variety of potato: the Russet Burbank favored by McDonald’s.”

Although most of the debate over genetically modified plants has focused on crops for food and animal feed, there has been surprisingly little discussion about the
robust global work under way to genetically modify trees, including poplar and eucalyptus. Some scientists have expressed concern that the greater height of trees means that the genetically modified varieties will send their pollen into a much wider surrounding area than plants like soybeans, corn, and cotton.