The corporate shaping of GM crops as a technology for the poor

Abstract

Genetically modified (GM, transgenic) crops are often invoked in debates about poverty, hunger, and agricultural development. The framing of GM crops as a ‘pro-poor’ and environmentally sustainable technology was partly a creation of the biotechnology industry, but cannot be explained as merely a cynical exercise in public relations. Storylines about poverty alleviation and sustainable development actually helped to drive and shape the technical and commercial strategies of the leading transnational agribusiness company, Monsanto, during the 1970s, 80s and 90s. However, while those storylines emerged alongside the GM crop technologies that were being developed in the company's laboratories and greenhouses, they failed to influence their design or technological content. Nevertheless, the pro-poor and sustainability rhetoric contributed directly to a transformation of Monsanto's sectoral and geographical scope, to include a new focus on markets in developing countries. In principle, serving farmers in these markets could lead the company to develop new products and technologies that are designed to address the needs of resource-poor smallholders, but the evidence of such a change occurring is scant.

Keywords:

• Monsanto
• GM crops
• biotechnology
• agriculture
• narrative

Notes

¹See www.agassessment.org[Accessed 12 September 2008].

²See e.g. Brooks (2008).

³Quoted in Hoover's company profile, reproduced at http://www.answers.com/topic/monsanto-company?cat=biz-fin[Accessed 3 June 2008].

⁴In fact, liability for PCB contamination at a former Monsanto plant in the southern US state of Georgia did eventually lead to the bankruptcy of Monsanto's industrial chemicals division, Solutia, in December 2003 (Hoover's company profile reproduced at http://www.answers.com/topic/monsanto-company?cat=biz-fin[Accessed 3 June 2008]).

⁵ Roundup is a registered brand name of the Monsanto Company.

⁶Deoxyribonucleic acid.

⁷The breakthrough was announced in January 1983.

⁸Interview, Monsanto research scientist, St Louis, 24 June 2005.

⁹Monsanto, ‘The Road to Roundup Ready® Crops’ (http://www.monsanto.com/features/road_to_roundup.asp[Accessed 2 June 2008]).

¹⁰ Roundup Ready is a registered brand name of Monsanto Company.

¹¹Interview, Monsanto executive, by telephone, 15 August 2005.

¹²Interview, Monsanto executive, by telephone, 15 August 2005.

¹³Interview, Monsanto executive, St Louis, 20 June 2005.

¹⁴Interview, Monsanto executive, St Louis, 20 June 2005.

¹⁵An article entitled ‘Fields of Promise: Monsanto and the Development of Agricultural Biotechnology’, written by independent consultant Karen Keeler Rogers, was published in Monsanto Magazine in two parts at the end of 1996 and beginning of 1997.

¹⁶Interview, Monsanto executive, St Louis, 20 June 2005.

¹⁷Ciba Geigy's agricultural division is now part of Syngenta.

¹⁸The report may be found as an appendix to the same analysts' subsequent report on DuPont (Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown 1999).

¹⁹Now the ETC [Erosion, Technology and Concentration] Group. See www.etcgroup.org[Accessed 1 August 2008].

²⁰‘Phase Advancements For Key Projects Reflect Progress and Strength Throughout Monsanto's Industry-Leading Pipeline’, January 2009 update, http://www.monsanto.com/pdf/pipeline/2009_pipeline_updates_slide.pdf[Accessed 2 July 2009].

²¹ Ibid, and ‘We Address Challenges One Phase at a Time, Beginning with Discovery’, http://www.monsanto.com/pdf/pipeline/pipeline_2009_phase.pdf[Accessed 2 July 2009].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dominic Glover

I thank Ian Scoones, Erik Millstone, Les Levidow, Bill Vorley, Melissa Leach, Jun Borras, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to acknowledge the financial support of the UK's Economic and Social Research Council and the CERES-Wageningen research school, which funded the work on which this paper is based.