Gary Nabhan has had a letter published in the Christmas edition of The Economist.
SIR – Your otherwise excellent leader on adapting to climate change was marred by the assertion that people should abandon their “prejudice” against genetic engineering in order to secure food supplies (“How to live with climate change”, November 27th). Although it is true that drought-resistant seeds will be needed—as will low-chill fruit trees and root crops—they are not likely to come from genetic engineering. This is because it can cost up to $5m and take up to 15 years of R&D for each new patented biotech cultivar. It is unlikely that genetically engineered organisms can be deployed quickly enough to respond to climate change.
It would be far more cost-effective to support local farmers in their breeding and evaluation of selected varieties already in community seed banks. The diversity of heirloom seeds offers rural communities far more pragmatic options than the Gates Foundation and Monsanto can generate with all their wealth.
Gary Paul Nabhan
Professor, University of Arizona, TucsonCarol Thompson
Professor, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff
I won’t comment on the GMO angle, except to say that Gary’s point is debatable. What I wanted to point out is that it’s not just “community seed banks” that house the seeds of adaptation to climate change. ((As it were.)) National and, in particular, international genebanks will also be important. That’s because the climates experienced by rural communities in the future will increasingly come to resemble those experienced in the past by communities further and further away. Adaptation will lie in other people’s seeds.
It seems to me the biggest single problem is getting genetic resources into farms, gardens and dinner plates. They don’t do anyone any good locked up in a seed bank. There are far too many obstacles to this right now, be it patents, international treaties, lack of seed bank funding, national interests, whatever. Like you rightfully point out, these genetic resources are going to increasingly be needed farther and farther from their point of origin, and we need to start thinking more in this way.
I’m no fan of GMOs, but really, on a level playing field where consumers aren’t forced to eat them and reasonable environmental and health considerations are taken into account, I’m all for giving them a chance. If they can deliver, so be it.
It’s really time to stop talking about what’s good and bad and rather spend time cataloging the worlds genetic resources, and figure out how to make them available in an unrestricted way to as many people as possible; be this gardeners, farmers, breeders, scientists or giant multinationals. We need to figure out how to get everyone cooperating with each other, instead of turning it into a big game to see who can grab the most for their own use.
“This is because it can cost up to $5m and take up to 15 years of R&D for each new patented biotech cultivar.”
Sounds like a very good deal if it would make wheat heat tolerant and rice drought tolerant.
Patrick: I still have a position paper I wrote when managing the Genetic Resources Unit at CIAT 25 years or so ago. One section is “Broadening the genetic base: On-farm distribution of germplasm”. In it, I argue that the sole function of a genebank in supplying samples to breeders (and for evaluation) is not enough. Distribution of samples direct to farmers, which farmers can maintain for their own interest, without subsidy, could provide and in-situ reservoir of variation for the future, to be managed by farmers, in farmers’ fields.
My Director of Research scrawled on it: “This is non sense [sic]… you shut up on this issue O.K.” I left CIAT shortly afterwards and I suspect attitudes are not very different now.