One of the arguments frequently used by those in favour of genetic engineering is that genetically engineered plants and animals will help to combat hunger in developing countries.
This, however, ignores the fact that hunger in many countries, especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia, is not due to too little food being produced globally, but because of the unfair distribution of existing resources such as land, seeds, water and capital. According to an evaluation by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) global agricultural production can supply a growing population It is the overproduction in industrial countries and the consequent subsidised export of agricultural products for marketing in developing countries that are the main reasons for vanishing markets and production in developing countries. This in turn exacerbates hunger in rural areas – where 80 percent of starving people live.
Genetically engineered plants and animals create new dependencies through patents and regional seed supplies are diminished. Extensively grown monocultures, for instance the genetically engineered soya grown as animal feed in Argentina for its export market, mean that small farmers are robbed of their livelihood and food supplies for the rural population become less secure. Soil and water are polluted with pesticides needed for extensive cultivation whilst rainforest and other valuable landscapes are destroyed to create further acreage.
The main benefit of genetically engineered plants is to the enterprises that develop them. Often they sell genetically engineered seeds together with the pesticides to which they have been made resistant.
It is not genetically engineered plants that are the solution to hunger in the world, but regionally adapted, sustainable agriculture. This view is endorsed by the World Council of Agriculture in a report published in 2009.
The Office of Technology Assessment in the German parliament also comes to the same conclusion, that “until now the use of transgenic seeds in developing and newly industrialising countries has proved to be limited in regard to the range of plant species, varieties and characteristics”.
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