Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

Biotechnologies for Sustainable Cultures
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Box 7.2: No evidence that GM cropping feeds the poor
By way of illustration, let’s have a look at the countries that have switched significant
proportions of their arable land to GM cropping beginning in the mid-1990s. While
industry analysts refer to GM “mega-countries” as those with 50,000 or more hectares
in GM crops (James, 2007), here mega-countries are defined as those with >20% of
their arable land (plus land planted in permanent crops according to year 2003 figures
from FAOSTAT, 2008) converted to GM cropping. This is because 50,000 hectares is
a very tiny proportion of agricultural land in most countries (e.g., 2% in Chile, 1% in
Colombia, 0.3% in France and 3% in Slovakia). Among the industry-labelled 13 megacountries,
the bottom three have a mere 0.4% (Mexico), 0.5% (Spain) and 0.2%
(Australia) of arable and permanent cropland in GM cropping. Only a total of seven
countries have >10% in GM cropping. In addition to those listed in Table 7.1, this list
includes the US (32%), Canada (13%) and South Africa (11%). Worryingly, the two
countries with 40% or more in GM cropping have seen an increase in their
undernourished populations since the introduction of GM crops, and a decreasing
food supply (Table 7.1).
Even for the United States, undernourishment statistics have remained static throughout
the GM era (ERS, 2006). According to USDA statistics, rates of food insecurity in US
households have hovered between 8-10% from 1995 (reflecting pre-GM agriculture)
to 2006 (post-GM agriculture), and very low food security has hovered between 2-
4%.