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Asked by lilygrainger to Andy, Cathie, Jules, Les, Ricarda on 28 Jun 2012.
Question: silly question, but will the genetically modified food be more or less or the same price and cost as normal food?
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Julian Little answered on 28 Jun 2012:
Hi lilygrainger, not a silly question at all, but you will not be surprised to hear that it depends!! So for example, if you buy animal feed here in the UK, GM soya trades at about 10 to 15% cheaper than non-GM – to be honest, you could say in this case, non-GM is more expensive because it is more expensive to make, and the demand for it is very low. GM maize, soy and cotton tends to be less expensive because a farmer’s inputs (diesel, pesticides) tend to be less and their yields are higher – take a look at http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/page/33/global-impact-2012 for an explanation.
On the other hand, if we are talking about vegetable oil with less potential for trans-fats from a GM plant, then that would be more expensive than “conventional” vegetable oil – again, to be fair, it is also more expensive than “conventional” vegetable oil from a GM crop!!
In the end, of course, the question of whether it will be cheaper in the shops also depends on who benefits from the reduced costs – our experience is that farmers, and the food supply chain all take from the savings and the end purchaser will certainly not see all of the benefits!! But I guess you would not be surprised to hear that!!
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Les Firbank answered on 29 Jun 2012:
A key question. Price has a huge influence on what food people buy, especially when money is short. I think the relative prices of GM and non-GM will change, I guess that GM will become cheaper in the long term, but I don’t know
Comments
dingo commented on :
This is not a silly question and as such deserves a factually accurate answer. First, it is unscientific to rely on data provided by PG Economics (at the link provided by Julian Little), a consulting firm to the biotech industry whose papers are mostly NOT peer reviewed or published in scientific journals, but cite data from GM companies.
Here’s some info about the astonishingly high cost of developing GM seeds compared with non-GM, from a report available here: http://earthopensource.org/index.php/reports/58-gmo-myths-and-truths
The sources are given in the report — some are industry so it’s interesting to balance this info, produced for industry’s own information, against the material put out for public consumption by PG Economics. In these sources, even industry admits that developing GM seeds is very expensive, a fact confirmed by Goodman:
An industry consultancy study put the cost of developing a GM trait at $136 million.[Phillips McDougall. The cost and time involved in the discovery, development and authorisation of a new plant biotechnology derived trait: A consultancy study for Crop Life International. Pathhead, Midlothian. September 2011.] Even Monsanto has admitted that non-GM plant breeding is quicker and “significantly cheaper” than GM. Monsanto said it takes ten years to develop a GM seed, in contrast with a conventionally bred variety, which takes only 5–8 years.[Lloyd T. Monsanto’s new gambit: Fruits and veggies. Harvest Public Media. 8 April 2011. http://bit.ly/LQTNxp%5D The plant breeder Major M. Goodman of North Carolina State University said the cost of developing a GM trait was fifty times as much as the cost of developing an equivalent conventionally bred plant variety. Goodman called the cost of GM breeding a “formidable barrier” to its expansion.[Goodman MM. New sources of germplasm: Lines, transgenes, and breeders. Paper presented at: Memoria Congresso Nacional de Fitogenetica; Year; Univ. Autonimo Agr. Antonio Narro, Saltillo, Coah., Mexico.]
The reason why GM soy trades cheaper than non-GM is NOT to do with higher costs of production of non-GM soy relating to less inputs. It is because the human food market in the EU demands non-GM (to avoid the offputting GM label) but this supply chain entails segregation from GM supplies, and GMO testing.
Costs of production for GM soy are in fact rising as the seed cost is higher than for non-GM seed and the accompanying chemical input costs are rising too due to the increasing spread of glyphosate resistant weeds, which need more and more chemicals to control them. See for example the sources quoted in this article: http://www.non-gmoreport.com/articles/mar09/farmers_planting_non-gmo_soybeans.php
And far from demand for non-GM soy being “very low”, 15% of all soy imported into Europe is certified non-GM, and that’s just the soy certified by one company. When the non-GM soy certified by other companies is taken into account, the total percentage of non-GM soy supplied to the EU is more likely to be around 30-40%. This is not a niche market (or if it is, it’s a niche occupied by the likes of several big supermarket chains) and this non-GMO market has remained quite strong since 1999.
http://bit.ly/OyilA8
http://bit.ly/NQR9v9
pheed commented on :
What about the additional supply chain costs from buying GM seeds? If they are the Monsanto-variety non-fertile seeds, buying a new seedstock each year could add to the cost to the farmer to grow GM.
dina commented on :
According to Mato Grosso Institute of Agricultural Economics (IMEA) in Brazil, non GMO soy production costs are considerably cheaper than GMO–at least this was true in 2009, when they issued this report (in Portuguese): http://www.abrange.org/english/informa/informa_us_nota.asp?cod=72
This is likely because of the higher cost of chemicals that the GM soy is designed to be grown with, as well as rising royalty costs for the GM seed.
scratty commented on :
I think GM foods will become cheaper EVENTUALLY!!
dingo commented on :
I admire your faith but the cost of GM seed development is high as the process is so imprecise and hit-and-miss. Plus the cost of the chemicals needed to grow them will only increase as oil and fossil fuels become scarcer (pesticides are made from oil and fertilisers from natural gas). The spread of herbicide-resistant weeds is a massive driver in increased cost of GM crop production (and most GM crops are herbicide tolerant and require pesticides, whatever the industry says).
Anil commented on :
I agree with Les Firbank