This relationship between GM crops and biofuels has blossomed most fully in the United States, which isn’t entirely surprising as it is the largest single market for both GM crops and biofuels. In particular, it is GM corn that has encouraged the relationship to blossom, with GM varieties accounting for 73 percent of all the corn planted in the United States in 2007 and corn being the main feedstock for U.S. ethanol production.
According to Brent Erickson, executive vice president, industrial and environmental section, at the U.S. Biotechnology Industry Organization, GM crops have helped U.S. farmers to increase yields by 30 percent over the past 10 years. This should provide sufficient feedstock for the United States to meet its biofuels commitments, as set out in the recent Energy Bill, which requires that biofuels account for 36 billion gallons of the U.S. fuel supply by 2022 (up from 9 billion gallons in 2008). “With agricultural biotechnology, farmers can continue to increase yields of crops to meet the demands for food, feed and fuel,” Erickson says.
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GM Crops Not Welcome in Europe
In Europe, however, the relationship is essentially forbidden, with biofuels prevented from fraternizing with GM crops. Part of the reason for this is simply because the European biofuels sector is different than the U.S. sector (see the “Vive la Difference” feature in the May EPM), with many of the crops used as biofuels feedstocks in Europe lacking commercially available GM varieties. This is especially the case for ethanol, which tends to be produced from wheat and sugar beets rather than corn.
More important, however, is the continuing negative perception of GM crops in Europe. This arises from two main concerns: that the foreign genes added to GM crops might escape into wild plants; and that food derived from GM crops could pose a health risk to consumers.
Despite the fact that GM crops have been grown and consumed around the world for more than 10 years now without causing any major environmental or health problems, some European environmental and consumer groups continue to assert that GM crops pose unacceptable risks. As a result, although the European Commission introduced a comprehensive regulatory regime for GM crops in 2003, the vast majority of GM crops still haven’t received regulatory approval in Europe.
According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, eight EU member states—Spain, France, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Germany, Slovakia, Romania and Poland—grew just over 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of GM crops in 2007 (solely comprising of insect-resistant corn). In contrast, farmers in the United States, which has a similar area of arable land to the EU, grew almost 58 million hectares (143 million acres) of GM crops.
The question is: Could biofuels offer a way to rehabilitate GM crops in Europe? European consumers are most concerned about the health effects of eating food products derived from GM crops, but there would be no such concerns with producing biofuels from GM crops.
Anti-GM campaigners obviously think so, with a number recently warning about the danger that biofuels would let GM crops in through the back door. For example, in February 2008, the environmental group Friends of the Earth, which prefers the term agrofuels because they think biofuels sounds too environmentally friendly, published a briefing titled “Agrofuels: Fuelling or Fooling Europe?” As the title suggests, this report is generally critical of the proposed environmental benefits of biofuels and had the following to say on the relationship between GM crops and biofuels. “Proponents of genetic engineering promote agrofuels in an attempt to break worldwide opposition to GM foods, even though current GM crops provide no advantage when producing agrofuels. GM crops raise unacceptable health and environmental concerns as well as lead to the further intensification of agriculture and increase corporate control of agriculture. In addition, crops engineered with traits specifically intended for industrial agrofuel use will inevitably contaminate food supplies. The use of GM crops and trees should not be permitted in the production of agrofuels.”
Losing a Competitive Edge
But their fears are currently unfounded. Even European proponents of GM crops admit that, at the moment, there is no specific need to grow GM crops for biofuels. According to Dirk Carrez, director of public policy and industrial biotech at EuropaBio, the association of the European biotechnology industry, EU member states should be able to meet the target set by the European Commission for biofuels to make up 10 percent of transport fuel by 2020 without GM crops.
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