“GMO is no silver bullet”, agreed representatives of CropLife Pakistan’s Seed Committee, in an interview with Business Recorder, earlier this year. It is one of several ways to optimise yields in Pakistan’s farming sector, others including adoption of precision agriculture techniques and SRI, etc. But it is the lowest hanging fruit – the fastest route to ushering a revolution in major crop yields and staging a turnaround in a declining sector which (still) employs the highest percentage of labour force yet contributes lowest returns per capita.
Is GMO an argument against bringing efficiencies in farming practices, such as conserving water? Is GMO controversy-free? Neither is true. The argument for GMO is not normative; but like all policymaking decisions, specially those based on technological advances, should be based on cost and benefit analysis.
Pakistan’s agriculture sector is blighted with several challenges: low R&D and infrastructure support; regionally uncompetitive cost of inputs; zero security of contract; small average landholding size; poorly functioning produce markets; water inequity; inequity in allocation of subsidy and pro-poor provisions; poor literacy in farming households; and lately, erratic weather patterns.
All of these results in crop output that takes higher amount of resources and costs more than in competitor nations, within region and beyond. One answer is to hope that as in other countries, Pakistan’s agri-sector will close in the efficiency gap only once rapid development in industrial sector forces efficiencies up the value chain.
Yet, as Pakistan’s secondary and tertiary sectors have gone into decline due to years of neglect and low investment in wider education and training - turning de-industrialisation into a palpable risk - it has become ever more paramount that farming sector fast become globally competitive, in the process providing employment opportunities for an-ever growing population that can no longer be absorbed by urban sectors alone.
That is where GMO comes in. With the right stewardship, the technology can provide the push needed to jump start crop yields, without proportional increase in cost of inputs. As cost of production reaches regionally competitive level, it should help open several export markets.
Second, the wide gaps within domestic crop yields is as much a cause of alarm but has remained disguised due to mediocre averages that allow experts to offer generic platitudes. In the case of sugarcane and cotton, for example, large-sized farm holdings in upper Sindh and Southern Punjab regions have yields close to targets levels; in sharp contrast to very low yields recorded in small farm-holdings in central Punjab.
Of course, since large-sized landholdings come with their own baggage (read: feudal exploitation), the plea is not to be nostalgic for jagirdari nizam or reversal of land reforms. Instead, to pay attention to CropLife’s argument that GMO yields are scale-neutral, and thus could address rural ‘land-fragmentation gone wild’.
The purpose is not to argue that biotech MNCs are Pakistan’s white knights in-waiting. These companies are obviously here with a profit-motive. But can they, in the process of making few bucks, also do less harm than good? To answer this, let’s consider the alternative.
When it comes to seed regulation, Pakistan has one of the weakest intellectual property frameworks currently in place. As in the case of cotton, there is a real risk of GM maize seeds being illicitly imported into the country. Due to higher yield and principle of increasing returns (at least initially), the adoption rate will be very high, especially since weed and pest resistance takes several (insect) generations to develop.
If the technology is introduced through illicit channels, by the time resistance leads to crop failure it will already be too late, because the MNCs will wash their hands off, refusing to offer stewardship in improving seed technology.
This is not fearmongering. Pakistani farmers have already experienced this in the case of cotton. Afterall, without stewardship, for biotech companies neither neck nor money is on the line. But for Pakistan’s agriculture, another promising cash crop will bite the dust.
The argument, to reiterate, is not to argue that GMO is without flaws or risks. But to insist that the risks of not regulating it are even greater. By allowing the seed technology through legal means, the state can make biotech lobbies answerable if the promised yields are not achieved. One way to do this could be to add caveats and penalties in the licensing.
For those who believe that the arguments offered by biotech companies are eyewash, this need to be debunked on merit with facts and numbers. Let’s at least have a conversation.
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