Johnjoe McFadden
Guardian
Wednesday August 29, 2001
The GM debate
is degenerating into a game of dungeons and dragons. Patrick Holden of the Soil
Association portrays the GM food lobby as "forces of darkness" and
claims there are "sinister motives at work". Environmentalists stalk
the streets dressed as capitalist demons out to murder our bountiful Mother
Nature. Yet yesterday's news that scientists in Scotland have created a GM elm
designed to be resistant to Dutch elm disease provides more evidence of the
potential benefits of this technology.
Things were
different 30 years ago. In America, Paul Berg and Stanley N Cohen reported
their first successful gene-transfer experiment. The news didn't make headlines
here, but it did send sparks through the educational system that lit a few
fires by the time I had to make my life choices.
Biology was the
science of the future. Physicists and chemists might sell their souls to the
devil to make bombs, pollutants and money, but biologists would save the world.
The new science of gene cloning would cure disease, abolish starvation and
bring about a new age of peace, love and genetic harmony. I chose biology.
A lot has
happened in 30 years. Each year many starved and many more died of diseases
such as TB and malaria. Cloning didn't save any of them. But biology did save
countless others. The 1960s were filled with predictions of imminent mass
starvation, as the world's population was set to outstrip its ability to feed
itself. In The Population Bomb, published in 1968, the chemist Paul Erlich
scorned the idea that countries like India could ever feed themselves. Yet by
1974, India was self-sufficient in cereal production. It even became a
food-exporter in the 1980s.
Worldwide mass
starvation was averted because pioneering plant breeders such as Norman Borlaug
developed new, high-yielding varieties of maize, wheat and rice. As the new
varieties were planted, first in Mexico and then throughout the world, harvests
soared. The green revolution, as it came to be known, saved millions from
starvation.
Though it
didn't involve gene cloning, the green revolution still wasn't
"green" in the modern sense. High yields demanded artificial
fertiliser, chemical pesticides and new soil technology. But where would all
the extra food have come from without these inputs? Organic farm ing has fed
people for centuries but it hasn't the capacity to feed the world's burgeoning
population. If all our organic waste were somehow diverted into spreading over
our fields, it wouldn't be sufficient to fertilise half our current world
cereal crop. Bullshit may be unlimited in the GM debate, but on the ground,
supplies are much more limited.
The advances of
the green revolution didn't come about overnight. They were the end result of
decades of small advances by earlier generations of biochemists, soil
biologists, geneticists and plant breeders. While Borlaug and his colleagues
fought with (and against) nature to make more food, the western liberal
movement had other priorities. Students marched to oppose apartheid, ban the
bomb and throw the Americans out of Vietnam. No one worried about cloning -
except scientists, who voluntarily gave up the technology until the safety
issues had been dealt with.
Why has cloning
replaced bombs, wars and racism as an object of hatred? Has cloning destroyed
cities or blighted the lives of millions? The answer, of course, is no. But it
is owned by multinationals. This seems to be its biggest sin. Forget the fact
that nearly all the food we eat in the west has been grown and distributed by
big business. GM food is different because... well, it's not natural.
But then hardly
any of the food we eat is natural. It's all the result of centuries of genetic
tinkering. Natural wheat is a weedy grass. A natural field is a meadow. The
genome sequencing projects have shown how nature has been messing around with
our genes for billions of years.
And natural
isn't always good. Salmonella is natural. So are botulism, cholera and typhoid.
Nature doesn't serve humanity. The natural world is a vastly complex web of
competing interests with no allegiance to any species or philosophy.
Thirty years
ago, cloning was science's brightest star. I thought it would save the world.
In the end it wasn't needed - Borlaug and his colleagues applied technology
that had been developed decades earlier.
The world has
moved on. Fewer starve but many still go hungry. In 20 years there will be 150m
malnourished children in the world. Where will the science come from to prevent
their suffering?
It's no good
waiting until it happens. The really important advances take decades to
develop. We need to start now. The population is rising and food yields are
slowing. GM technology may not hold all the answers but it will hold some. The
GM debate needs to move on from its obsession with adolescent fantasy games to
consider the benefits as well as the risks of this new technology.