"Support New Genomic Techniques"

demand a whole bunch of Nobel prize winners

These Nobel prize winners along with non-Nobel prize winning scientist start their open letter with “In these times of climate crisis, biodiversity loss and renewed food insecurity” They go on to plead with elected leaders to accept New Genomic Techniques in order to adapt crops to a changing climate.

There is a signature list of the Nobel prize winners and the others, something that is striking is that there are no ecologists on the list, the Nobel prizes were awarded in fields such as chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine. This is profoundly troubling as we are discussing food, malnutrition and humanity. How can it be that someone who has a Doctorate in physics feels that they are competent to express opinions of food growing, agriculture, nutrition and crops in general?

An ecologist, looking at the same situation would be asking very different questions to someone who does research in physics for example. Ecologists study life and how it organises itself, how it creates systems that become more complex,diverse with increasing levels of interdependencies. Once upon a time we sought a theory of everything and thought that life could be explained by biology, biology by chemistry and chemistry by physics. We discovered that at each interface things eluded us, and still do, biology cannot explain life merely the packages that contain it. Understanding more meant developing new tools such as the science of ecology which ‘considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level.’(wikipedia). Life organises itself into the world wide web of interdependencies. We have just started understanding this web and how it works but we have already changed it and what we have done works in the opposite direction to the natural process that we are beginning to understand, we have done a lot of damage.

In the same way that ecology sprung from the science of biology, permaculture developed from ecology, with a few other things thrown in such as the economy, architecture and so on. Thanks to this root Permaculture designers tend to be very wary of technological based solutions such as the New Genomic Techniques (NGT) crops so proudly and robustly defended by the Nobel prize winners who state ‘with your support the EU Parliament can reject the darkness of anti-science fear-mongering and look instead towards the light of prosperity and progress’.

One would think that such thinkers as these would avoid labelling anyone who is unconvinced by their New Genomic Techniques or has worries about unforeseen consequences as ‘anti-science fear-mongerers’. One would have expected better that the use of 19th century terms such as ‘light of prosperity’ and ‘progress’. But they are humans and they have their concerns and they believe that in order to feed humanity we need genetic changed crops. Let us explore the subject from another point of view that of ecology and permaculture.

It’s not what we do it’s the way that we do it, in this case growing food. The problems with today’s agriculture are well known, for example the food industry produces 34% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The food growing part, agriculture, aquaculture etc account for 71% of that total. We can also mention massive soil erosion, environmental destruction, pollution and a total reliance on oil.

Even were NGT crops to succeed they would do little to address these problems.

We already produce enough food for everyone and we would have even more if we stopped wasting upwards of half of it.

So NGT crops aren’t actually needed.

Some areas of the world, due to climate change, are becoming hotter and drier, this is making it difficult to continue growing the normal crops. In the letter the authors mention bananas (which come from New Guinea), maize (which comes from Mexico) and cassava (which comes from South America) it’s these crops which, amongst others, are struggling. They replaced, in many areas, crops like finger millet, fonio and teff despite being less nutritive, these crops are being planted over increasing areas and they are not the only ones as more and more farmers rediscover the native adapted species. Grow these in sophisticated small scale agroforestry systems and production increases.

So NGT crops aren’t needed.

F1 plants and patented crops tie farmers into a loan/debt cycle as they are forced to buy to buy the seeds and the pesticides and artificial fertilisers needed to grow them. NGT crops cost a lot to bring to the market and we have no idea if the seeds of these crops will be viable, will breed true or are sterile which would again lock a farmer into the loan/debt prison. These crops may need fewer pesticides but this hasn’t been validated and anyway pests adapt. A move back to adapted native crops also means saving seed for sowing which is a big financial plus for the farmers.

So NGT crops aren’t needed.

Guilds

Ok, it would be possible to continue like that but let’s try another tack. An ecologist and a permaculture engineer will examine things in their context, understanding the plant itself is important but understanding the plant in it’s environmental context even more so. We study interactions, if this plant is next to another type no they help or hinder each other. Permaculture engineers will create what are known as guilds of plants (and not just plants, animals, buildings etc can be included in a guild). The idea is to consider a crop plant and then decide which plants are the best adapted to be it’s neighbours. Wheat in a clover lay in between rows of context adapted trees for example. Guilds are also dynamic in time, for example what happens after the wheat harvest? The clover will bounce back and animals can graze the crop residues, help fertilise the field which will then be sown with the next crop. Rows of wheat can be planted between rows of multi-functional trees, it’s simplistic to say that trees create rain but it is more or less the case as this study shows. They also produce a shading effect that protects plants from too much direct sunlight.

Diet diversity

We live within a variety of different ecosystems and we are, each one of us an ecosystem, an internal and surface one that is also connected to the wider local ecosystem. Over millennia we have reduced the variety of our diets down to a few staple crops, a lack of diversity in equals a lack of diversity inside. A diverse gut microbiome is associated with better health, better mental health and better longevity. Diversity, having a lot of different species is one factor that is linked to ecosystem long-term dynamic stability, natural systems show us that a lack of diversity creates instability. The old adage was ‘carrying all your eggs in one basket’ a lack of diversity in crop plants creates instability and fragility in the outer and inner ecosystems. We don’t need NGT foods we need a much, much wider variety of foodstuffs in our daily diets. For farmers this means that the failure of a crop isn’t as catastrophic as it might have been as there is a multitude of other crops in the fields.

NGT’s are designed to fit into the existing food industry model which is profoundly dysfunctional, agriculture is financially supported by taxation, to the tune of around $600 billion a year globally. This shows that the current agro-industry model is unsustainable, it also means that oil based agriculture maintains it’s dominance as it’s products are unfairly under-priced. This is hurting the essential evolution towards sustainable, local, poly-cultural food production. What is even more shocking is that even with this massive funding many farmers struggle to make ends meet. The charity Sustain point out that a loaf of bread may cost £1.14 in a supermarket but the cereal farmer makes just 0.09 pence profit per loaf. As Sustain point out this is hindering farmers who wish to transition to sustainable and climate adapted agricultural systems, they are simple running as hard as they can just to stay in the same place. NGT crops will not change this status quo and could potentially make it worse.

It’s time to get serious and switch to sophisticated agricultural systems locally producing a wide diversity of crops. Supermarkets and the adjoining food industry which produces huge quantities of waste and toxic ultra-transformed foods must disappear as quickly as they came. Local farmers linked into community integrated agricultural systems is the way forward. Of course permaculture engineers will point out that we have to transition the wider ecosystem as well, starting in our homes and spreading out to create sustainable human settlements that enhance life.

I would respectfully encourage the Nobel prize winners to stick to their fields of expertise, statements such as ‘we must rise above ideology and dogmatism’ cut both ways. The letter cites a study done by the Breakthrough institute who according to the mediabiasfactcheck people ‘often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favour conservative causes.’ I haven’t been able to find any information on who funds them.

Thanks for reading!