The Failures of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs): Australia as a case study

Summary

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have failed on many levels including: social, political, legal, economic, agronomic and ecologic. After three decades of promotion, promises and contention, 3.8% of global agriculture is GMO agriculture. Mechanisms for compensating farms contaminated by GMOs are lacking, and the GMO industry has taken no responsibility for contaminations. GMOs are a threat to the organic sector and the maintenance of certification and price premiums. Only 24 countries grow GMOs commercially. Four countries of North and South America (USA, Canada, Brazil and Argentina) account for 85% of the global GMO hectares. Four crops (soy, corn, cotton and canola) account for 99% of GM hectares. Despite the veneer of social validity that regulators cast, the GMO sector has failed to gain a social licence. Where GM labelling is required, food manufacturers avoid GM ingredients. GMOs have failed to gain price parity with their non-GM counterparts, and they attract price penalties. Segregation of GMOs and non-GMOs has failed (with a tolerance of 0.9% GM contamination in so-called non-GM canola). GM has failed the coexistence test with GMO growers contaminating neighbouring farms. GMOs are a biosecurity fail, with test plots of GM canola planted in the late 1990s still monitored two decades later for rogue canola plants. Most GMO crops are glyphosate dependent. Glyphosate is globally subject to massive litigation claims and awards, and is implicated in the causation of multiple cancers. Most countries (88%) do not grow GMO crops. This paper considers the global experience of GMOs and the Australian experience as a microcosm of the global experience and as a case study.