Food biotechnology often becomes a political issue, rather than a policy issue

Martijn Pakker is Senior Manager for Communication, Stakeholder Engagement and Global Advocacy at the International Rice Research Institute, the organisation responsible for developing golden rice. Golden Rice has been awaiting approval in Bangladesh for more than five years now. Pakker talks about the potential benefits of golden rice and the use of biotechnology in food in general, while also addressing many of the doubts and fears linked to genetically modified food (GMO). 

You recently attended COP27. Could you speak about the discussions there surrounding food security and how biotechnology can play a role in addressing food insecurity?

There were a number of key takeaways: adapt or starve, help poorer countries help themselves, find out what works and replicate it, and get more involvement from the private sector. So there's really a number of key things where biotechnology can actually fit into those pieces of the puzzle. 

Biotechnology in all its forms – whether we talk about accelerated breeding, transgenics or genome editing – are all ways to improve both the nutritional content of crops but also their resistance to what we call abiotic stresses – to the stresses of climate change, increased resistance to pests and diseases, drought-resistance, salinity resistance. 

And of course, the private sector has a large role to play in it, agricultural research has an important role to play in it, in the sense that we are the ones that have that space for creative innovation and really bring those things to scale. I think the private sector and government sector really are the ones that will be able to bring these things to scale at a level which is impactful for consumers, producers and climate more broadly.

Where does biotechnology in food stand, in terms of science and policy, in its ability to play this role? Some governments appear to be still wary of biotechnology, judging by the policy regime that has been put in place. 

I think where a lot of the fear and hesitation comes from, I wouldn't say misinformation but lack of information. It is really the responsibility of both the scientific community and civil society to make sure that the right information is out there so people can make informed decisions. 

When it comes to policy, again, because so many people are on the fence, it really makes politicians and policy decision-makers really hesitant to make a decision that could potentially be unpopular among their constituents. And we are seeing that nowadays also in Bangladesh when we look at the adoption of golden rice where, despite the very solid evidence for the absolute safety in terms of environment, in terms of health, there are a lot of naysayers out there. Policymakers then become very hesitant because these are of course constituents that they don't want to cross at very key times, such as the elections in Bangladesh next year. So it becomes a political issue rather than a policy issue. 

I think a lot of the misconceptions also come from the fact that a lot of previous GM products – transgenic products rather – have generally come from a sector that was purely profit-driven. When we look at golden rice, when we look at a number of the products that have been developed by research institutes such as IRRI, the product becomes much more altruistic. 

Golden rice is bio-fortified rice, it contains beta-carotene – a precursor to Vitamin A. What's great about it is it's not pure Vitamin A, your body only converts it as needed, which is very different from the vitamin capsules programme. 

Another very interesting product that's in the pipeline, and hopefully we will be pushing that through is high iron and zinc rice, trying to address the micronutrient deficiencies that are prevalent. 

Will they be like golden rice or will they be commercial products?

It will be like golden rice. It's coming out through BRRI in collaboration with IRRI. 

We first heard of golden rice 20 years back. By the time golden rice becomes available, Vitamin A deficiency is not as big a problem as it used to be. Why is the process so slow? Even in Bangladesh, we are entering the sixth year.

We just celebrated the fifth anniversary of the submission of the file. There are two answers to that question. The first one is, science takes time. Just like any learning process, science is a process of trial and error. And by the sheer fact that transgenics and precision genetic technologies are still governed by the Cartagena Protocol means that very high and stringent levels of control need to be done on these products before they are even brought to a market.

The second part of your question, yes, 20 years ago, micronutrient deficiencies in a lot of countries were a lot direr than they are now. And I do want to take the opportunity to applaud initiatives that have been done, for example, by the Bangladesh government – supplementation – to actually raise that level. But if you actually look at the latest Bangladesh nutrition survey, while there is significant improvement in Vitamin A deficiency, there still remains a high level of insufficiency. 

Some of the resistance to biotechnology mirrors the fears surrounding modern technology in general. But an underlying theme in the resistance appears to be a fear of big global companies and the need to protect the interests of smallholder farmers against them. How do we address those issues going into the future?

A lot of these things are largely remnants of the past. If you look at 21st-century corporate thinking, companies are now not operating for a single bottom line, they are operating with that triple bottom line, of which one is environmental, social and corporate governance. And so ESG is big among corporations nowadays, and that means that there are also certain social responsibility companies have to do. So as they move into that triple bottom line system, there is much less of acting to the detriment of smallholder farmers' livelihood by peddling and force-feeding a product, which may not be 100% ready, or that comes with conditions. 

As you said, a lot of the resistance is fed by socio-economic, rather than scientific perspective, as is also the case with AI or vaccines. But these are all things that are going to happen whether we like it or not, as we move further into the 21st-century, because it's what the world needs in terms of food security, in terms of health, in terms of epidemic preparedness.

When BT Brinjal was launched in Bangladesh, there was a lot of controversy surrounding prerequisites not being followed properly – such as testing and labelling. Don't incidents such as these harm GMO's image among people?

Of course. The thing is, these things need to go in parallel to each other. When it comes to BT Brinjal, it just outpaced it. The process happened so quickly that there was very little control over how it was distributed. 

I know that in a lot of Western Anglo-Saxon countries there is that movement of labelling GMO-free; but that really is more of a way of giving people the opportunity to make their own informed decisions to consume, rather than it being a restriction on something. 

From the activists' perspective, I guess they see golden rice as sort of a Trojan horse. From Syngenta's perspective, why did they approach it from an "altruistic space" rather than a commercial one? 

As I was mentioning before, it's that altruistic kind of move into a corporate-responsible world and opening up that license to an inter-governmental organisation that does the research and providing that then to the public at no premium cost. 

I wouldn't call it a Trojan horse. I understand how it can be perceived that way because it would set a precedent of approval of a product like golden rice. But at the same time, the rigour with which golden rice is being evaluated will set the precedent also for rigorous evaluation of commercially produced GM products, which otherwise might not be there. 

How does the relationship between Syngenta and IRRI work? (Syngenta is listed as one of its investors on the IRRI website)

I can't comment on that. Not because I'm not allowed, but I don't know.