Fisheries Economics

8.4.1 GMO in fisheries

Food is an essential need and each government is expected to ensure that it is available to all its citizens. But the challenge is increasing demand for food grains due to ever-increasing population and income levels. The world stocks–to-use ratio for good grains is falling indicating the urgent need to enhance food grain production. Decreasing arable area due to increasing urbanization and industrialization, shortage of water resources, production and distribution constraints and other factors contribute to this situation.

In the case of fisheries also, a similar trend is seen the world over. Increasing population and income levels have been enlarging the gulf of demand for and supply of fish. Marine fish production had already leveled-off reaching a plateau which leaves no scope for increasing marine fish landings any more. Aquaculture alone has the scope to augment fish production. While freshwater aquaculture is a major source of increased fish supplies, decreasing water resources, pollution, and a host of other factor could impede aquaculture production from freshwater resources. So, we may have to go for open-sea mariculture to shore-up fish supplies.

Production of Genetically- Modified Organisms (GMOs) was identified as a potential source for enhancing production of food grains, fish and livestock. In Agriculture, genetic engineering efforts attempted to identify desirable traits and combine them in a crop variety. There are two types of desirable traits; agronomic characteristics and quality characteristics. The agronomic characterists are yield, resistance to diseases, insects and herbicides, and capacity to grow in inimical conditions. Food processing, preservation, nutrition and flavor of the final product are some of the desirable quality characteristics.

Approval of for commercialization of GMOs was agreed in 1996. Since then, rapid strides have been made in the production of GMOs. GMO plants which are resistant to pests and insects and tolerant to herbicides have been developed. In case of fisheries, fast-growing cold resistant fish and in livestock, more effective vaccines to combat diseases, and livestock feed that let animals absorb nutrients effectively have been done. GMO crops have reduced cost on insecticides and lowered production cost. However, concerns on their adverse effect on the environment and biodiversity and more importantly on human health have been claimed.

The major beneficiaries of the GMOs are the Multi-National Corporations and Large agriculture farmers in the developed countries. Experiences with green revolution showed that richer farmers were benefitted the most and only places with adequate infrastructure could generate abundant, cheap food although their ineffective distribution led many millions go to bed with hungry stomachs. Traditional farmers, more notably women, who were dependent on traditional crops suffered the most due to loss of their crops, changes in land use patterns and associated health problems.

These companies armed with patents and licensing agreements effectively prevent access to extend the benefits to protect people from hunger and enhance food security in developing countries. There are ethical questions also relating to the GMOs.

George Monbiot, a journalist working for social worker observed in 1999: “The greatest threat to food security on earth is the concentration of the food chain in the hands of a few rich and powerful players….. This attempt to control the food chain, through developing GMOs, threatens to turn them into hunger merchants of the third millennium”. However, production of GMOs have been on the increase. Globally, GMO crops were farmed in 120 million hectares in 23 countries in 2007 which is like to increase further in future. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) estimated that about 14 million farmers grew biotech crops or GMO crops in 2009 of whom about 90% were resource –poor farmers in the developing countries. It included 7 million farmers in the cotton-growing areas of China, about 5-6 million farmers who grew bt cotton in India, 2, 50, 000 in the Philippines, South Africa (growing GMO cotton, marine soybeans mostly by subsistent women farmer) and the remain up from other 12 developing countries was also reported that another 10 million small, resource- poor farmers got secondary benefits from Bt cotton in China. It was estimated that the global value of such biotech crops grown in 2008 was about US $ 130 million.