On World Food Day: What Kind of Technology Can Truly Ensure Food Security?

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Foodthink Says

16 October marks the 44th World Food Day. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has set this year’s global theme as: “Food security for all, building a better life together, creating a shared future.”

Genetically modified (GM) technology and its proponents and promoters have long packaged it as the best solution for ensuring food security. However, Empire of Seeds, a new book on the history of Monsanto authored by an American environmental historian, uses meticulous facts and data to forcefully debunk the myth of Monsanto’s GM technology.

In response to this work, several Chinese scholars and practitioners have engaged in discussion: how should ordinary people understand GM technology? How are these technologies in food and agriculture shaping our food systems? What kind of technology can truly ensure food security? And what can we, as ordinary consumers, do?

● This article was compiled from the live broadcast of Species on the Dinner Table on the Science Channel of Tencent News on 9 August. Scan the code to watch the replay.

I. The Complexity of GM Technology Is Being Overlooked

Tian Le (Foodthink founding editor, convener of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market): As early as 2005, Monsanto had become the world’s largest seed seller. Its GM seeds were sold in numerous countries, including Vietnam, Brazil and India. When it comes to Monsanto’s GM crops, I would like to cite two conclusions from Empire of Seeds. First, it did not reduce the use of herbicides and insecticides. This is because after their GM products were brought to market, resistant weeds and insects appeared almost immediately. Take GM soybeans, which account for over 90 per cent of the market: herbicide use, whether measured per unit area or in total, only declined for a few years after GM crops appeared, then began to rise rapidly, far exceeding the levels seen before herbicide-tolerant GM crops were introduced. Meanwhile, the use of the companion glyphosate rose almost without interruption.

● Soybean herbicide usage trends, 1992–2016: pounds of glyphosate per acre versus pounds of other herbicides per acre (top figure); pounds of glyphosate versus pounds of all other herbicides (bottom figure). Data compiled from Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Ohio. Source data: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service and the United States Geological Survey National Pesticide Synthesis Program, annual estimates of agricultural pesticide use for major crops, 1992–2017. Image source: Empire of Seeds
Tian Le: Second, it has not delivered any yield gains either. For one thing, GM technology was never designed to increase yields. For another, many scientists have compared yield data between the United States, where GM varieties are used extensively, and Europe, where they are not, and the results show that yield growth curves over the past few decades have been virtually indistinguishable—in other words, Monsanto’s GM varieties offer no yield advantage whatsoever.
Guan Qi (seed system researcher, head of the Eastern Office of the Farmer’s Seed Network): When Monsanto promotes its GM seeds, it always emphasises yield—it is very results-oriented. I think the complexity and the inherently uncontrollable nature of the process are, in fact, being overlooked. In biological breeding, the interaction between genes and the environment is extremely complex. Whether it is GM or gene editing, the R&D process is exceptionally complex and unpredictable. Making choices within this process requires an enormous workload, and the number of failures is vast—although these never make it into public view. Another example that illustrates the complexity of the GM issue: in Mindanao, Philippines, an open-pollinated corn variety has been widely grown for nearly fifteen years. Researchers later tested this variety and discovered that it actually contained a GM segment, originating from a patented herbicide-tolerant GM variety. It seems likely that a farmer with breeding skills had cross-bred this GM variety with the existing open-pollinated variety, producing a hybrid that could both save its own seed and tolerate herbicides. So this new hybrid variety gradually became popular locally—there was no agricultural extension service involved; it simply spread among farmers, almost as a form of mutual aid, because the variety reduced labour input and meant no money had to be spent on purchased seed.

What makes this case particularly interesting is that it challenges GM advocates and opponents simultaneously. Those in favour of GM technology would blame inadequate government oversight—the patent rights of the GM variety had been infringed—but in reality, since the origin of this hybrid cannot be traced, no one can be held accountable. For opponents of GM technology, there is an equally significant challenge: what kinds of seeds do farmers actually need, and who should meet their practical needs? For example, can our public breeding system fulfil this role?

II. Will the General Public Still Be Beneficiaries of Future Technological Progress?

Tian Le: According to the book, Monsanto was extremely ruthless with farmers it deemed to have “infringed” its patents. We used to think that ordinary people were always the beneficiaries of scientific and technological progress—and indeed, we can point to countless examples that support that view. But in recent years, we have also begun to feel the confrontational side of technology’s relationship with ordinary people: algorithms affecting food-delivery couriers, Apollo Go displacing taxi drivers, or in the food sector, people complaining that everything tastes worse and worse when, in fact, that is the very result of so-called technological progress, which increasingly prioritises efficiency over flavour and quality. As technology’s power to reshape our lives grows ever stronger, how should we understand the conflict it brings? Xu Zhun (professor, Department of Economics, Sun Yat-sen University): The utility of science and technology truly cannot be judged in blanket terms. Only under certain specific social conditions does it become our friend—an indispensable tool for improving our lives—while under other social conditions it may turn into our adversary. So the key question is one of analysing the relevant economic and social relations.

For example, in the 1960s the Indian government agreed to embrace the Green Revolution and introduce high-yielding crop varieties, hoping that technology would boost output. At the time, many had great expectations of the Green Revolution, including narrowing the gap between rich and poor. But history proved the exact opposite. These high-yielding varieties were more expensive than local traditional varieties, and growing them required large quantities of water and reliable irrigation. Yet rural India’s infrastructure was generally poor, and in practice these high-yielding varieties not only failed to help the poorest farmers but actually deepened poverty in certain areas.

So I believe we should not take a generalised, abstract stance for or against science and technology; we need to examine what a specific technology actually delivers under the specific social conditions of the moment.

Take Monsanto, for instance. The book reveals numerous problems with the technology itself—problems that do not even operate at the level of science. Whether it was herbicides or insecticides, their researchers simply found in an experiment that a product had a weeding or pest-killing effect, and that finding became a trade secret, a patent, a formula for profit. But why it worked, what the underlying mechanism was—on that they were indifferent, and they did not encourage scientific discussion either. So their contribution to science was limited.

III. How Can Breeding Technology Better Help Farmers?

Tian Le: If a seed company like Monsanto monopolises breeding and the seed market, that brings negative consequences for farmers and agriculture. So how should breeding technology be developed to better serve farmers? Guan Qi: There should be a mechanism to support farmers in acquiring appropriate seed-selection and breeding knowledge through collaboration with research institutions. For farmers, their needs are not particularly complex, but they are diverse. Outsiders often assume that farmers lack the knowledge or ability to save seeds, let alone breed them. Yet when we look back at history, we find that cross-breeding has only been industrialised for barely over a century. Before that, farmers relied on their own accumulated skills and knowledge to carry out selection and breeding.

So could we now establish a support mechanism that enables farmers to reclaim those skills and this knowledge? The Philippine case shows that farmers not only have the potential to master them but, once they do, can select and breed the varieties that suit their own needs.

Building this kind of social support mechanism cannot rely solely on civil-society organisations, because NGOs have limited funding and staff and can only conduct small-scale demonstrations. Ultimately, we probably need to return to the public breeding system. Our country once built a powerful agricultural research and extension system, but today we need to reflect on how these systems can function effectively and how they can truly understand what farmers need.

Take early Mexico’s Green Revolution, for example: even within the Rockefeller Foundation, there were disagreements about seed-extension strategy. The project officers at the time fell into two distinct disciplinary camps. Those with a scientific research background wanted to transplant American high-yielding varieties directly and roll them out across Mexico. Those with a social science background insisted that the varieties most needed by local farmers should be the priority, and therefore argued for improving Mexico’s own landraces to suit local conditions.

These represent two fundamentally different development paths. Looking back on that history, we find that the social-science approach ultimately lost out. People concluded it was a waste of time to keep refining local varieties, and as a result many of Mexico’s corn landraces were displaced. In the end, it was Mexico’s large farms that benefited, not its countless smallholders.

Beyond the vertical process of transferring technology to the public or to farming communities, the breeding industry also has a horizontal dimension. When breeders work on variety improvement, a basic precondition is that diversity in seed resources must be safeguarded. The most efficient way to reduce uncertainty and complexity in the breeding process is to conduct large-scale pre-breeding and screening from extensive germplasm resources.

Today, the competitive pressure among seed companies and agribusinesses is immense, and market concentration keeps rising. Because of this rivalry, information between individual laboratories and companies is never shared—breeding materials are treated as trade secrets—and as a result, collaboration between them is often simply impossible.

Consider Argentina’s GDM Seed Group, one of the world’s largest soybean biological breeding companies, with 700 research stations across fifteen countries. It holds extraordinarily rich germplasm resources and has carried out extensive selection work, amassing a formidable advantage. For latecomers—countries or companies entering the field later—such concentration of seed resources creates enormous pressure. In practice, many biological breeding companies simply buy germplasm from firms like GDM and then develop their own GM research around it.

But who actually preserved all those germplasm resources? It was farmers. In our work we have a principle: “keeping seeds with the people.” Why do we keep advocating that farmers should preserve and protect whatever seed resources they still hold? Because only if they are preserved first can we later explore the potential of these landraces—all of which lays the groundwork for pre-breeding and for meeting diverse social needs.

So bringing farmers into the process—including bringing us, the consumers, into it as well—is vitally important. As consumers, we can channel our preferences—for example, that we would like less-sweet fruit—back to breeders, who can then access that information and adjust their breeding objectives to meet societal needs.

● The seed bank of VERN, a civil-society organisation near Berlin, Germany, has preserved over 2,000 varieties. Through their efforts, some heritage varieties have been commercially developed and entered the mainstream market.

IV. Do Consumers Really Know What They Want to Eat?

Tian Le: Guan just mentioned involving consumers as well, but most of us as consumers are actually very passive when it comes to food. Or rather, as consumers, even our preferences are shaped by the market. Since I also work at the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, I can see a small group of consumers who are actively seeking out alternative food networks rather than passively waiting for the market or companies to shape their consumption preferences and shopping habits. This trend is actually quite fascinating. Zhou has done research in this area over the past few years—do you think consumers have an opportunity to reshape their own food consumption networks? Zhou Mujun (researcher of food and agriculture systems, associate professor, Department of Sociology, Zhejiang University): From an optimistic standpoint, certainly. When I was researching alternative food networks, I came across a smallholder farmer on the outskirts of Chengdu. He farms only twenty or thirty mu of land, and in the city of Chengdu he has found around a hundred households willing to buy produce from him and support him in running his farm in a more ecological way. He loves this work, enjoys delving into crop cultivation techniques, doesn’t need to seek migrant work elsewhere, and doesn’t have to be separated from his family. His income is higher than that of the average farmer, and those customers can buy better, more trustworthy produce. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. So, on a small scale, this approach is viable.\n\n

● Across China, there are alternative food networks similar to the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market that enable consumers to buy produce directly from ecological smallholders. For more similar events, follow the Foodthink WeChat public account, which publishes the “National Food and Agriculture Events Digest” at each solar term.

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Zhou Mujun: But when you scale this up, it becomes considerably more difficult. We keep talking about consumer preferences as though consumers spontaneously like or dislike certain foods or certain flavours. But in reality, our tastes and preferences are largely shaped by external forces. Each generation grows up in a different environment, eating different things as children, and their tastes differ markedly. The cherries I used to eat as a child were a little tart, a bit watery, but I can hardly find those anymore. The cherries in supermarkets are all that variety which is very large, very dark and very sweet. Sometimes I wonder whether being particular about food flavours, or having a preference for healthy food, is also related to a person’s socio-economic position. If your quality of life is relatively poor, you may simply not have the luxury of caring about such things. Abroad, we do see a very clear class distinction: organic supermarkets are always situated in more affluent neighbourhoods, and their prices are higher too. So my attitude is actually rather ambivalent and uncertain. On the one hand, I greatly admire those consumers who actively build their own food networks; on the other, I am sceptical about how much impact such alternative food networks can have on the overall market structure.\n\n
Tian Le: Indeed, much Western research links taste to class and race. But I think there may be something of an exception in China. From my own observation, it is actually those who come from the countryside, those with a rural background, who tend to be more sensitive to food quality. Those born after 1980 and 1990 who grew up in big cities from childhood are, if anything, more readily conditioned by industrialised food culture, to the point where they cannot enjoy the fuller range of flavours and textures food has to offer. This is why there is a running joke that “Old Beijing’s signature cuisine is KFC and McDonald’s”. How can consumers get involved? I believe the right to information is the first step. Urban middle-class consumers are becoming more health-conscious. For example, in April this year, Shanghai took the lead in introducing “nutritional grading” for beverages, requiring drinks to carry ABCD nutritional grading labels. I think that is a very good starting point.\n\nWill consumers have more opportunities in the future to choose agricultural products and food that are kinder to the environment and to producers? That is a question each and every one of us must work together to answer.\n\n
● For further discussion on food security and technology, see the video recordings of this year’s Empire of Seeds talk series co-hosted by Foodthink, SDX Joint Publishing Company, Yali Reading and the Farmer’s Seed Network, or the written retrospective of the series at the end of this article.
\n\n *This article was first published on Tencent News in Let’s Chat Science\n\n Click the link to access more science news\n\n Edited by: Tian Le\n\n

Published by Foodthink