THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear Friends and Colleagues
GM Crops May Not Fit Swiss Agrosystems
Switzerland passed a law on genetic technology in non-human organisms in 2004, followed by a referendum to ban GM crops. This moratorium, in place since 2005, is expected to be lifted by the end of 2017. Concurrent with the moratorium, a large national research programme had evaluated the costs and benefits of GM in the Swiss agricultural context and found that the commercially available GM crops at the time would not yield particular agronomical advantage to Swiss farmers and that global distaste of GM-containing food impaired chances to open a viable market for such crops.
About 12% of Swiss farms are certified as organic and almost all other farms produce under relatively strict compliance requirements. Another 80% are bound to integrated production systems or other labelling systems that ban the use of GM crops. In anticipation of the possible end of the moratorium in 2017, a new study has evaluated the potential impact of GM crops on Swiss agrosystems, focusing on both environmental and socio-economic sustainability.
The researchers analysed the impact of four crops that are critical in Swiss agriculture; each was compared for both conventional and GM farming systems that contained a specific trait. They focused on an insecticide-producing (Bt) maize resistant to the European corn borer and corn rootworm, and a herbicide-tolerant (HT) sugar beet, both of which are already commercially available; and on two which are not – a potato variety resistant to late blight and an apple resistant to scab. Both environmental and socio-economic data were combined in an ex-ante multi-criteria decision analysis model and the sustainability of various scenarios containing GM crops or not was tested.
The study found that the Bt and HT crops do not fit well with the very specific dynamics of today’s Swiss agrosystems. Moreover, six out of seven scenarios showed a lower socio-economic sustainability for GM compared to current conventional systems, while a marginal improvement in the environmental component, mostly resources use, was observed in all scenarios. The study concluded that only carefully tailored and designed GM crops would meet the high standard of requirements of Swiss agrosystems.
The researchers further reiterated recent studies which suggested that the potential of modern plant breeding might be best exploited if associated with low-input systems such as organic or agroecological farming.
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GENETICALLY MODIFIED CROPS IN SWITZERLAND: IMPLICATIONS FOR AGROSYSTEM SUSTAINABILITY EVIDENCED BY MULTI-CRITERIA MODEL
Wohlfender-Bühler, D., Feusthuber, E., Wäger, R., Mann, S., & Aubry, S. J. (2016).
Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 36(2), 1-16.
DOI: 10.1007/s13593-016-0367-9
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13593-016-0367-9
Abstract
In Switzerland, genetically modified (GM) crops have been banned in 2005 and have never been used in agriculture. The relevance and sustainability of genetically modified crops for agrosystems have been assessed following a mandate from the Swiss Parliament defined by the Federal Act on Agriculture (187d al.1). For that, an ex ante study based on a multi-criteria decision analysis model that summarises literature and the opinion of experts has been done.
The impacts of genetically modified crops on both environmental and socio-economical sustainability in Switzerland have been assessed. Here, we review four model crops for Swiss agriculture: maize, sugar beet, potato and apple. Each crop was compared for both conventional and genetically modified farming systems that contain a specific trait, namely insecticide production (Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)), herbicide tolerance (HT), fungal resistance (FR), or bacterial resistance (BR). Results show that six out of seven scenarios showed a lower socio-economical sustainability for genetically modified compared to the conventional systems, whereas a slight improvement in the environmental component, mostly resources use, was observed in all scenarios. In conclusion, our work indicates that only carefully tailored and designed genetically modified crops would meet the high standard of requirements of Swiss agrosystems. Our model has thus allowed a quick diagnostic on the impact of genetically modified cultivation on sustainability.