UAC: Genetic modification of plants - a business interest or objective necessity?

For some time past, the world population is more and more facing food problems.

To date, a period of reconsideration regarding GM crops growing is taking place, both globally and Ukraine-wide. This in the same manner relates to production of feed for livestock and food for human consumption.

There is no objective solution to this problem as of yet. However a stage of rational approaches towards the issue is on its way targeted at resolving the problem on the scientific, economic, political and socially oriented grounds.

Despite the existing negative attitudes towards genetically modified components, in 2009 the acreage under biotech crops amounted to 134 million ha (9% of the total global area under crops), which exceeded respective indicator of 2008 by 9 million ha, or by 7%. Over the last year the biotech crops were grown in 25 countries, including 9 developed and 16 developing countries. Among the leaders, in terms of the area under crop, there were USA (64.0 million ha), Brazil (21.4 million ha), Argentina (21.3 million ha), India (8.4 million ha), Canada (8.2 million ha), China (3.7 million ha), Paraguay (2.2 million ha) and South Africa (2.1 million ha). The rest of the crop acreage (2.7 million ha) related to 17 countries, such as Uruguay, Bolivia, Philippines, Australia, Burkina Faso, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Czech Republic, Portugal, Romania, Poland, Costa Rica , Egypt and Slovakia (according to ISAAA). The main biotech crops to date is as follows: soybeans (75% of the total acreage), cotton (50%), maize (25%) and canola (more than 20%). Recently, EU Commissioner for Agriculture approved the cultivation of genetically modified potatoes kind of "Amflora", second crop after maize "Monsanto" MON 810, both of which are allowed for cultivation and use for industrial purposes and feedstuffs in the EU country-members. The European Commission adopted this decision on the basis of scientific and economic, not political considerations.

The international community realized the importance of biotechnology application in crop production during the food crisis in a continuous growth of world population and scarcity of land resources. It enables farmers to increase production of "cleaner" products, resistant to pests through intensification, as well as reducing the use of crop protection agents.

There is, however, the other side of the coin in application of the above technologies. Namely, it is a risk of imbalances in nature and that of violation of biodiversity (endangerment and falling out of the food chain of certain insects for which individual plants are a source of food and existence), the possibility of self-propagation of genetically modified crops that are not subject to the impact of crop protection agents, and only mechanical methods will be appropriate to combat their excessive effects. So the rule of the golden mean, it's advisable to use traditional methods of agriculture and biotechnology in crop production.

Currently, an opinion on the harmfulness of food from GMOs prevails, even though nobody has proved it by now. Thus, during the latest 15 years of research there has not been revealed any negative effect of GMOs on human organism or natural environment, but there occurred a conflict of interest among participants of the experimental research. During this period, the EU earmarked around €200-300 million for testing GMOs on harmfulness. Hence the question follows: - "How much more money is to be embezzled on defending the business interests of certain market players?

So, time will show how useful and objective is the application of genetically modified technologies.

This year in Ukraine the producers and sellers of food are in a difficult position because of strict requirements concerning labeling products with mandatory display of label tags indicating "GMO" or "GMO-free" (Laws of Ukraine brought into effect as of December 17, 2009 are: # 1778-VI "On safety and quality of food" (to inform citizens about the presence of genetically modified organisms in food) and # 1779-VI "On amendments to the laws of Ukraine on providing information about content of genetically modified components").

According to European practice, in Ukraine the threshold of GMOs contents is stipulated at 0.9% of the total weight of the product in one package, but mandatory labeling "GMO-free" in the EU, unlike in Ukraine, is not required. So, in our view, it is inappropriate, from the economic standpoint, to label GMO products without content, because the absence of specified labels automatically means that the product does not contain genetically modified components, particularly for products that cannot contain GMOs by default.

Reference:
There are 26 specialized laboratories in Ukraine. It is required to carry out at least 20-25 million tests, which is technically impossible. The cost of testing the food for GMO content is about UAH 800. Hence, a complete fulfillment of measures, in compliance with the laws, will result in the losses on the food market totalling above UAH 2 billion.
International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) to 2015 foresees 20 million farmers in 40 biotech countries (including developing countries Asia, Latin America and Africa) growing biotech crops on 200 million ha.
In 2010-2015, there will take place a gradual introduction of new biotech crops for satisfaction of human needs. A few selected new biotech crops / GM crops are provided below: Bt eggplants in India in 2010, awaiting permission from the government; the new biotech maize SmartStax ™ in the United States and Canada in 2010, which contains eight different genes coding for a total of three traits; dryness-proof corn in the U.S. in 2012 and in Africa, southward from the Sahara, in 2017; golden rice in the Philippines in 2012, in Bangladesh and India later in the future, and later still in Indonesia and Vietnam; biotech rice and maize with phytaza in China before 2013; perhaps a sign of efficient use of nitrogen (NUE) and biotech wheat by 2015.

Analytical Department, UAC