By Andualem Sisay

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 has to ban the use of Genetically Modified foods (GMO), which will cost poor farmers billions of dollars every year for purchasing GMO seeds, urges civil society organizations (CSOs). 

Ethiopia needs to invest 66 million US dollars every year to purchase and grow genetically modified wheat seed if the country decides to introduce GMO. While Brazilian soybean growers who now save and re-use soybean seeds would be forced to spend an estimated 407 million US dollars per year if the Brazilian ban on Terminator seeds were lifted, according to the document prepared for the upcoming RIO+20 Summit by a group of international civil society organizations.

Further explaining the dangers of using GMO, the document also noted that in the Philippines, an estimated 59 percent of the rice crop is planted with peasant-saved seeds. If these rice growers were forced to buy new seed every time they planted - they would spend an estimated 172 million US dollars per annum.

In addition, If Canadian wheat growers (who now grow wheat on 8.36 million hectares with peasant-saved seed) were forced to buy Terminator wheat seed, the total cost per annum would be 85 million US dollars, according to the document.

In Ethiopia, approximately 90 percent of the total wheat area is planted in farm-saved seed. "If Terminator seeds (GMO) were commercialized and Ethiopian wheat growers were forced to buy new seed every time they planted, it would cost an estimated 66 million US dollars per year," the document stated. 

The document stressed that industrial food systems and other unsustainable practices are causing dramatic environmental damage, including reduction of biodiversity and soil fertility, overuse and pollution of water, and are substantially contributing to climate change.

"...this kind of food systems and food production systems should be banned by the UN because it undermines the possibilities for producing enough and healthy food for actual and future generations. At the same time these industrial food systems impoverish millions of small-scale food producers, are creating increasingly bigger waves of poverty, hunger and migration, and are causing health problems at a large scale."

Food Insecurity
Studies show that globally there are one billion people food insecure but at the same time abundant unhealthy foods and diets are affecting at least 2 billion people, causing obesity, heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes and other diseases, and serious pandemics are likely to occur in the near future.

The small scale farming systems such as, saving and using seeds from previous harvest seasons have evolved and adapted over millennia in traditional forms of agriculture and are now more relevant than ever, argue the CSOs and environmentalists.

"They can be combined, if appropriate, with latest science on agro ecology and other forms of sustainable production. Small scale food producers provide the food for about 70 percent of the population today, and small scale agroecological and other forms of sustainable agriculture and food production, developed in the framework of food sovereignty," the document states.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 has a historical opportunity to make important decisions and agree on actions that actually do eradicate hunger and poverty, and save the environment, according to the document.

Oligopoly in Agribusiness
In addition, oligopoly in agricultural inputs reduces efficiency and discourages the resiliency necessary to respond to new health and environmental challenges.

"Today, six corporations (Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow, Bayer, and BASF) control 71 percent of crop chemicals, 58 percent of commercial seed sales; and (with their biotech partners) control 77 percent of the world's so-called 'climate-ready' crop patent claims. The 6-company oligopoly stifles innovation, encourages energy waste and promotes their polluting chemicals. Competition policies must break up the food chain."

New policies must encourage market diversity and research support for agro-ecological systems. Market diversification, for seeds alone, could reduce prices by at least 30 percent saving the world's peasants more than 9 billion US dollars per annum, according to the CSOs.

Continued Argument
In 1996, the first genetically modified seeds were planted in the United States for commercial use. In the meanwhile, genetically modified crops were grown on 134 million hectares worldwide. For over a decade the issue of GMO has been debatable.

Recent reports from South Africa shows that farmers are being negatively affected by growing GMO wheat and soybeans. A research by the Grahamstown-based Masifunde Education and Development Project Trust, together with Rhodes University's faculty of humanities and department of sociology, has found that the South Africa's government program of introducing farmers with GMOs has had disastrous results for farmers in the Amathole district municipality.

"We saw a deepening of poverty and people returning to the land for survival," one of the researchers attached to Masifunde, Mercia Andrews, said.

Contrary to the critic of environmentalists and civil society organizations, some scientists argue that it is the best way to end food insecurity.

"This really isn't about science. The rejection of GMOs is about politics, about ideology, about trade. It's lots of things, but it's not science. The science is pretty clear," argued Professor Bruce Chassy of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an expert in food safety in an interview with National Catholic Reporter in May 2009.

"First, there has never been a safety assessment of organic products of any kind, as is true of many of the conventional foods we have. Second, conceptually, making a GM food is actually less invasive than conventional breeding. It's less likely to produce unintended effects. Third, the claim that organic farming is better for the environment is based on an ideological belief that using natural materials to amend the soil is better than using chemicals. There's actually no evidence of that. There is a fairly overwhelming scientific consensus about the safety of GMOs," he argued.

According to the World Health organization, while theoretical discussions have covered a broad range of aspects, the three main issues debated are tendencies to provoke allergic reaction (allergenicity), gene transfer and outcrossing.