The experience of the past is often the best guide for the future. The experience of the first seven years, 1996–2002, during which a cumulative total of over 235 million hectares (over 580 million acres) of transgenic crops were planted globally in 19 countries, has confirmed that the early promise of biotechnology has been fulfilled. GM crops can deliver substantial agronomic, environmental, economic and social benefits to farmers and, increasingly, to society at large. GM crops have met the expectations of large and small farmers planting transgenic crops in both industrial and developing countries.The most compelling case for biotechnology, and more specifically GM crops is their capability to contribute to increasing crop productivity, particularly in the developing countries (James, 2002a, 2002b; www.isaaa.org; Pinstrup-Andersen and Schioler, 2001) where they can make a crucial contribution to food, feed and fibre security; conserving biodiversity, as a land-saving technology capable of higher productivity; more efficient use of external inputs and thus a more sustainable agriculture and environment; increasing stability of production to lessen the suffering during famines due to abiotic and biotic stresses; and improve economic and social benefits and the alleviation of abject poverty in developing countries (James, 2002b; UNDP, 2001). It is critical that a combination of conventional and biotechnology applications be adopted as the technology component of a global food, feed and fibre security strategy that also addresses other critical issues including population control and improved food, feed and fibre distribution. Adoption of such a strategy will allow society to continue to benefit from the vital contribution that plant breeding offers the global population.
With significant progress in the first seven years of the first decade, 1996–2005, when GM crops are being commercialised, what can we expect during the remaining three years, 2003–2005, at the dawn of a new era in crop biotechnology? The latest GM crop indicators for 2003 and beyond augur well for the future of crop biotechnology. In 2002, coincidental with increased political, policy and institutional support for GM crops, due to their acknowledged essential contribution to global food security, the global area of transgenic crops in 2002 benefited from continued growth of 12%. The number of farmers who benefited from GM crops in 2002 was approximately six million of which five million were resource-poor farmers planting Bt cotton, mainly in eight provinces in China and also in the Makathini Flats in the KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa (Ismael et al., 2002). The well-documented experience of China with Bt cotton (Huang et al., 2002, Pray et al., 2001, 2002) presents a remarkable case study where five million small resource-poor farmers in 2002 already benefited from significant agronomic, environmental, health and economic advantages—this is a unique example of how biotechnology can impact on poverty alleviation as advocated in the 2001 UNDP Human Development Report (UNDP, 2001). The China experience with Bt cotton lends itself for introduction and replication to carefully selected developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa where resource-poor farmers can learn, share and benefit from the rich experience of China—the majority of the hectarage of global cotton is in the developing countries of the world. Following a successful launch of Bt cotton by Indonesia in 2001, India, the largest cotton-growing country in the world, grew Bt cotton for the first time in 2002.
The opportunities and constraints associated with public acceptance of transgenic crops continue to be important challenges facing the global community. Because of our thrice-daily dependency on food, agriculture touches the life of every individual in the global community of over six billion. Unlike industrial countries, such as the United States and countries of the European Union, with few exceptions, all developing countries are net importers rather than exporters of food, and where a high percentage of the population employed in agriculture are either small resource-poor farmers practising subsistence farming or the rural landless who are dependent on agriculture for survival; 70% of the world's 1.3 billion poorest people are rural people, the majority of them are resource-poor farmers and their families. Agricultural employment, as a percentage of total employment, was 80% in the developing countries in 1950, and is still projected to be 50% in 2010 when the population of the developing countries will be approximately six billion, equivalent to the global population of today. Improved food, feed and fibre crops derived from appropriate conventional and biotechnology applications for small resource-poor farmers are vital for increasing productivity and income to provide access to food in the rural areas where the majority of the poverty, hunger and malnutrition exists. Crops are not only the principal source of food but are also the livelihood of farmers and agricultural workers. Increased crop productivity provides more employment and acts as the engine of economic growth in the rural communities. Producing more food, feed and fibre on small resource-poor subsistence farms, where most of it is consumed, has the significant advantage that the inevitable infrastructure constraints associated with transport can, to a large extent, be circumvented in that the produce is largely consumed at the same locations where it is produced.
Global society must seek equitable solutions that meet the different needs of people and nations and respect differing opinions regarding GM crops. Implementing an equitable policy is a challenge in a world where globalisation, a web of international protocols and international trade are all impacting on the ability of sovereign nations in the developing world to access and utilise biotechnology and GM crops in their national food, feed and fibre security strategies, to meet domestic and export needs. This does not imply that biotechnology and GM crops are panaceas. Biotechnology, like any other technology, has strengths and weaknesses and needs to be managed responsibly and effectively. Biotechnology represents one essential link in a long and complex chain that must be in place to develop and deliver more productive crops, which are urgently required by small resource-poor farmers in developing countries. This will require the political will, goodwill and unfailing support of both the public and private sectors in the industrial and developing countries to work together in harmony, as pledged during the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
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