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How Gene Drive Organisms Could Entrench Industrial Agriculture and Threaten Food Sovereignty

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How Gene Drive Organisms Could Entrench Industrial Agriculture and Threaten Food Sovereignty FORCING THEHow Gene Drive FARM Organisms Could Entrench Industrial Agriculture and Threaten Food Sovereignty Forcing The Farm How Gene Drive Organisms Could Entrench Industrial Agriculture and Threaten Food Sovereignty October, 2018 About ETC Group: ETC Group works to address the socioeconomic and ecological issues surrounding new technologies that could have an impact on the world’s marginalized people. It operates at the global political level and works closely with partner civil society organizations (CSOs) and social movements, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America. ETC Group is headquartered in Val David, Canada, and Davao, Philippines, with offices in Mexico City and Guelph, Canada. ETC Group acknowledges support from the Frontier Co-op Giving Fund, the CS Fund, the AgroEcology Fund, the 11th Hour Project, Threshold Foundation and Nell Newman Foundation in our ongoing work on synthetic biology. Heinrich Boll Foundation: Fostering democracy and upholding human rights, taking action to prevent the destruction of the global ecosystem, advancing equality between women and men, securing peace through conflict prevention in crisis zones, and defending the freedom of individ- uals against excessive state and economic power – these are the objec- tives that drive the ideas and actions of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. We maintain close ties to the German Green Party (Alliance 90 / The Greens) and as a think tank for green visions and projects, we are part of an inter- national network encompassing well over 100 partner projects in approx- imately 60 countries. The Heinrich Böll Foundation works independently and nurtures a spirit of intellectual openness. www.boell.de/en In brief: Gene drives, food and agriculture aren’t quite as well behaved as their Mendelian ISSUE models intended. What if genes for female sterility, The first attempt to use genetic engineering for instance, which have been shown to eliminate technologies on the farm involved altering common mosquito populations in the lab, transferred to crops to be resistant to pests or weed-killers. species that pollinate our crops or are a food This genetically modified (GM) crop approach source for birds, reptiles, even humans? What if ran into problems when many consumers didn’t genes that were beneficial became disabled, or buy GM foods and farmers found the promised if genetic disruption increased the prevalence or benefits only materialised, if at all, in the short- altered patterns of diseases? term. Now biotechnologists are contemplating a new strategy – to engineer newly developed Once the gene drive genie has invasive forms of genetic modifications to control been let out of the bottle, no one insects, weeds and create new monopolies. Their plan is to use what has been dubbed a gene has actually worked out how it drive or ‘genetic forcer’ (see Box 1). Experiments might be put back in again. with Gene Drive Organisms (GDOs) are aimed at designing creatures that automatically spread The logic of using GDOs in agriculture relies on their engineered genes across whole habitats the continued deception that exceedingly complex and ecosystems. They could, it is claimed, make problems in the food system can be resolved some of our key agricultural pests extinct, reduce simply by new high-tech innovations. the need for pesticides and speed up plant breeding programmes. According to some of their ACTORS proponents, gene drives could even be compatible Currently, publicly announced gene drive projects with non-GMO and organic farming. are funded with a quarter of a billion US dollars, led by the military research agency of the United RISK States government (DARPA), the Bill and Melinda The potential for the creation of invasive GDOs Gates Foundation, The Tata Trusts and the capable of spreading engineered genes in the wild Facebook-backed Open Philanthropy Project. Yet takes one of the worst scenarios envisaged for leading gene drive promoters acknowledge in genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and turns private and in their patents that the commercial it into a deliberate industrial strategy. While first- goal will be in agribusiness. generation GMOs mostly spread engineered genes It is no surprise then that a low-profile network of by accident, GDOs will be designed to do their own agriculturally driven gene drive research is growing. engineering among wild populations out in the real The world’s first start-up company focused on world. Their spread to those populations would be agricultural gene drives, Agragene, is joined by deliberate. Scientists behind gene drives have only a clutch of crop commodity groups such as the just begun to ask what would happen if the genes California Cherry Board and the US Citrus Research Board, as well as livestock breeders, who see gene and international levels, questions of technology drives as an exciting magic bullet for their on- assessment and societal consent have yet to be farm challenges. Meanwhile, major agribusinesses formally addressed. such as Monsanto-Bayer, Syngenta-ChemChina, The UN Convention on Biological Diversity has DowDuPont (now Corteva Agriscience) and moved the question of gene drive governance to Cibus lurk in the shadows of gene drive policy the centre of its deliberations and the topic will discussions, advised by scientists and PR advisers dominate talks in Egypt in November 2018, where to keep a low profile for now. a moratorium will be on the table as well as calls for free prior and informed consent by affected POLICIES peoples including farmers. Gene drives are designed to be invasive: to persist and to spread. While gene drive developers claim This report is being issued as that there may be ways to effectively contain gene an alert to governments, civil drive organisms in the future, these hypothetical claims and assumptions need to be rigorously society organisations and examined and tested. In the meantime, precaution grassroots movements. It points and justice requires a moratorium on any releases. to how gene drives, while Strict laboratory handling and containment rules for all gene drive research must be internationally promoted as a tool for medicine agreed and put into practice before further and conservation, will find their research can proceed even in the lab. At present, real use in food and farming by it appears possible to develop new GDOs without agribusiness. It calls for a pause them being subject to any specific biosafety regulations. In some jurisdictions, such as Brazil, in applied research in gene drives it is not even clear whether they will be subject and a halt on releases to the to the weak biosafety rules that controlled the environment until a thorough development and use of GMOs. and public process of dialogue Technologies that originate in the laboratory, such as GMOs and now gene drives, ignore deep- has taken place and rules seated injustices and power imbalances which are established that ensure require political answers and democratic scrutiny, clear consent and defence rather than technical quick-fixes. At both national of food sovereignty. Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4 2. A technical-fix déjà vu ................................................................................................................................................. 6 3. Behind rare birds and woolly mammoths — How Big Ag hides its role ................................................. 8 4. Gene drive visions warp the future of farming ................................................................................................13 5. A technology out of control? ..................................................................................................................................25 6. Acting ethically in a governance vacuum ......................................................................................................... 30 1. Introduction Half a century ago, bioscientists made the first experiments, this technology is so potentially deliberate snip in the genetic code of a living powerful and disruptive that Big Ag cannot organism. By developing techniques to remove and afford not to undertake research on its potential. insert sections of DNA ribbon, they launched a new Moreover, gene drives offer agribusiness new phase in the industrialisation of life that has already potential opportunities to generate income from begun to modify food, trade, land use, livelihoods, the problems faced by farmers. cultures and the genetic characteristics of the living world. The uptake by farmers of genetically Figure 1: How gene drives differ from modified organisms (GMOs), often without their normal (i.e. Mendellian) inheritance, using fully informed consent and usually with mixed flies as an example. results, still makes billions of dollars for huge agri- chemical corporations, such as Monsanto (now ormal inheritance in generation o lie Bayer) and Syngenta (now Sinochem-ChemChina). More recently, however, uptake of GMOs has Modified ild Insect Insect levelled off as the predicted risks have become NATURAL evident, such as the intensification of the treadmill PROCESS Altered gene 1 does not spread of increased use of toxic chemicals. With the to all offspring arrival of so-called ‘gene editing’ techniques, and particularly what their proponents call ‘gene drives,’ Big Ag is shifting strategy and hopes to pick up the
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