On Robert Malthus and Banning New Foods
Food & Environment | Jim Hoggett
8th November, 2006
Many people harbour a deep-seated fear of new technology
particularly when it involves our food. The current ban on all new
genetically modified (GM) food crops represents the worst
manifestation of this fear. If Australian farmers are to adapt to
climate variability including drought, reduce their ecological
footprint, and play their part in feeding and clothing an
increasing world population, they need access to this new
technology.
Two hundred years ago Robert Malthus predicted that the world's
population would overshoot its food supply by the middle of the
19th century. It didn't happen. Then Stanford University professor
Paul Ehrlich predicted that by 1980 the world would have
experienced terrible famine and life expectancy in the US would be
just 42 years. It didn't happen.
Since Robert Malthus, food production has more than kept pace with
population increase because of technological development.
Australian scientists and farmers have been trail blazers. They
invented the first harvester and released the first genetically
modified (GM) biological control, the crown gall bacterium back in
1988.
But over the last 10 years things have stalled and now, this
winter, the wheat and canola crops failed across southern Australia
because of drought. All this at a time when the world's food
stockpile is low, and the world's population set to increase by
another 2.5 billion.
Will Robert Malthus be just 100 years late in his prediction?
Perhaps it depends on the extent to which countries like Australia
continue to embrace new technologies.
By the end of the last century farmers were growing double the
amount of food from the same area of land because of new
pesticides, fertilisers and crop varieties. This century the big
breakthroughs have been predicted in the area of
biotechnology.
Cotton is the only crop that is exempt from the bans on new GM
crops here in Australia. The latest GM cotton varieties reduce
pesticide use by 80 per cent and the latest CSIRO research suggests
a 10 per cent improvement in water use efficiency.
About 30 per cent of the vegetable oil we consume in Australia is
from cotton seed. Most of the rest of our vegetable oil is from
canola. A Greenpeace anti-GM campaign, launched in 2001, targeted
GM canola as the first GM food crop, conveniently ignoring cotton
as an existing source of vegetable oil.
Now this year, with the failed canola crop, it is likely Australia
will be importing canola from Canada to make vegetable oil. If the
canola imports go ahead, Australia will be importing a product that
we have banned our farmers from growing.
Canadian farmers grow GM canola because it gives better weed
control.
The anti-GM campaign claims that being GM free has given Australian
farmers access to more markets, in particular Europe. But Europe is
likely to be importing Canadian canola from early next year for
biodiesel.
Our cotton, and the Canadian canola, represent the first generation
of GM crop varieties.
The next generation will combine superior yield and weed control
with improved nutrition. For example, DuPont has a new variety of
soybean with a low linolenic acid profile, meaning reduced trans
fat, and thus a reduced risk of heart disease. Just last week
Hamburger giant McDonalds said it will change the cooking oil used
in its Australian outlet away from standard canola to healthier new
oil blend with much less trans fat.
Then there are the climate change benefits of GM food crops. A
global study of the socio-economic and environmental benefits of GM
identified a carbon saving equivalent to taking five million cars
off the road through decreased fuel use, and increased soil carbon
sequestration from conservation tillage associated with GM
crops.
Recent research in Japan has shown that by inserting a gene from
maize into rice, it is possible to increase rice yields by 35 per
cent while sucking in 30 per cent more carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere. But Australian farmers haven't got past the basics.
They haven't yet opened the door to GM canola, a crop that has been
grown by their competitors for over 10 years.
Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens, recently explained his
opposition to GM food crops on the grounds that we know we'll
survive if we keep things as they are, but we don't know if we'll
survive roaring off into the future using these new technologies.
But the only constant in life is change and we need to embrace it.
It is only through the adoption of new technologies that we have
managed to escape what Robert Malthus considered the inevitable
human condition, one of misery, vice and poverty.
The Australian community needs to open its eyes to all the benefits
of technology, including new GM food crops.