Socio-economic Considerations for Genetically Modified Organisms

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Socio-economic Considerations for Genetically
Modified Organisms

• XUE Dayuan
• Nanjing Institute of Envir. Sci., SEPA Central
  University for Nationalities, Beijing
• Xishuanbenna, Dec 3, 2007

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Topics

• Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol on
  Biosafety
• Socio-economic problems for GURTs
• Consumers attitudes to GMOs a survey in Beijing
• Farmers responses to Bt cotton a field survey
  in 5 provinces in China

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 26 Socio-economic considerations
• Article 26 establishes the right of Parties to
  take into account socio-economic considerations
  arising from the impact of living modified
  organisms in reaching a decision on whether to
  import these organisms, especially with regard to
  the value of biological diversity to indigenous
  and local communities. However, when Parties are
  taking into account such considerations, they are
  at the same time required to ensure that the
  decision is consistent with their other
  international obligations.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 26 Socio-economic considerations
• Article 26 Paragraph 2 of Article 26 calls upon
  Parties to cooperate on research and information
  exchange on socio-economic impacts of LMOs,
  especially on indigenous and local communities.
  In accordance with the medium term programme of
  work adopted by the first meeting of the COP-MOP
  (decision BS-I/12). COP-MOP 2 requested Parties
  and other Governments to provide their views and
  case studies concerning socio-economic impacts of
  LMOs. It also invited Parties and other
  Governments to share information and experiences
  on socio-economic impacts of LMOs through the
  BCH.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 26 Socio-economic considerations
• Decision BS-II/12
• 1. Invites Parties and other Governments to
  continue to cooperate within relevant processes
  under other organizations and arrangements on
  socio-economic considerations cooperation on
  research and information exchange
  (UNEP/CBD/BS/COP-MOP/2/12), which deal with
  socio-economic impacts of living modified
  organisms
• 2. Urges Parties, other Governments and relevant
  organizations to provide more emphasis to
  research on socio-economic impacts of living
  modified organisms (LMOs) and to allocate
  resources for that purpose
• 3. Invites Parties, other Governments and
  organizations with research activities related to
  socio-economic impacts of LMOs arising from the
  impacts of these organisms on the conservation
  and sustainable use of biological diversity, to
  share information with other on their research
  methods and results, both positive and negative

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 26 Socio-economic considerations
• Decision BS-II/12
• 4. Further invites Parties and other Governments
  to share, through the Biosafety Clearing-House,
  their information and experiences in taking into
  account socio-economic impacts including
  experiences in implementing the AkwéKon
  Voluntary Guidelines
• 5. Requests Parties, other Governments and
  relevant international organizations to provide
  to the Executive Secretary their views and
  case-studies, where available, concerning
  socio-economic impacts of living modified
  organisms

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 23 Public awareness and participation
• Article 23 requires to promote and facilitate
  public awareness and education, including access
  to information, regarding the safe transfer,
  handling and use of living modified organisms
  (LMOs). It also requires Parties to consult the
  public in the decision-making process, to make
  public the final decision taken and to inform
  public about the means of access to the Biosafety
  Clearing-House.
• Public awareness, education and participation are
  fundamental elements for the effective
  implementation of the Protocol. It is important
  for the public to know and understand the issues
  and processes related to LMOs and to have access
  to relevant information in order to make informed
  choices and actions, and to be able to
  participate effectively in the decision-making
  processes.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 23 Public awareness and participation
• COP-MOP in its decision BS-I/12 agreed to
  consider, at its second meeting, options for
  cooperation between Parties, other States and
  relevant international bodies on the promotion
  and facilitation of public awareness, education
  and participation concerning the safe transfer,
  handling and use of living modified organisms.
• In its decision BS-II/13, COP-MOP encouraged
  countries to develop and implement national
  programmes, to make effective use of the media
  and to leverage opportunities for cooperation in
  the promotion of public awareness, education and
  participation concerning the safe transfer,
  handling and use of LMOs.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 23 Public awareness and participation
• Decision BS-II/13
• Emphasizing the importance of public awareness,
  education and participation in promoting
  transparency, public confidence and broad-based
  support for the effective implementation of the
  Protocol,
• Underlining the importance of making the
  information concerning the safe transfer,
  handling and use of living modified organisms
  available to different stakeholders

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 23 Public awareness and participation
• Decision BS-II/13
• 9. Encourages Parties, other States and relevant
  international bodies to make effective use of the
  tools and mechanisms established under the Global
  Initiative on Communication, Education and Public
  Awareness (CEPA) under the CBD
• 11. Invites Parties, other States and concerned
  relevant international bodies to explore and
  maximize opportunities for cooperation in the
  promotion of public awareness, education and
  participation through the frameworks provided by
  related national and international instruments,
  in particular the Aarhus Convention on Access to
  Information, Public Participation in
  Decision-making and Access to Justice in
  Environmental Matters.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 18 Handling, Transport, Packaging and
  Identification
• Paragraph 2 sets out obligations on each Party to
  take measures that require the identification of
  LMOs in accompanying documentation. These
  identification measures vary depending on the
  intended use of the LMOs. Accordingly there are
  different requirements for LMOs intended for
• - LMO-FFPs, direct use as food or feed or
  for processing (subparagraph (a),
• - LMOs destined for contained use
  (subparagraph (b),
• - LMOs for intentional introduction into
  the environment (subparagraph (c).

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 18 Handling, Transport, Packaging and
  Identification
• The COP-MOP 1 decided to establish an open-ended
  technical expert group that would develop
  proposals on the details of the identification
  requirements for LMO-FFPs under paragraph 2(a) of
  Article 18, called for the use of a commercial
  invoice or other existing document for
  incorporating the information provided for by the
  Protocol to accompany transboundary LMO
  shipments invited Parties to use Unique
  Identifiers for Transgenic Plants adopted by the
  Organization for Economic Cooperation and
  Development (OECD) and requested the Secretariat
  to maintain a register of unique identification
  codes in the BCH.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 18 Handling, Transport, Packaging and
  Identification
• At its third meeting, COP-MOP made an important
  breakthrough regarding the contentious issue of
  detailed requirements for documentation
  accompanying shipments of living modified
  organisms intended for direct use as food or
  feed, or for processing, which had eluded
  Governments during the last segment of the
  negotiations of the Protocol and since its
  adoption.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 27 Liability and Redress
• The issue of liability and redress for damage
  resulting from the transboundary movements of
  LMOs was one of the themes on the agenda during
  the negotiation of the Biosafety Protocol. The
  negotiators were, however, unable to reach any
  consensus regarding the details of a liability
  regime under the Protocol.
• Accordingly, COP-MOP-1 established an Open-ended
  Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical
  Experts on Liability and Redress to fulfil the
  mandate under Article 27.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 27 Liability and Redress
• The first meeting of the Ad Hoc Group on
  Liability and Redress took place from 25 to 27
  May 2005 in Montreal, Canada
• The second meeting of the Working Group on
  Liability and Redress was held from 20-24
  February 2006 in Montreal, Canada. At this
  meeting, the Working Group developed an
  indicative list of criteria for the assessment of
  the effectiveness of any rules and procedures
  referred to in Article 27
• The Working Group developed different options for
  operational text on scope, damage and causation.
  The outcome of these deliberations is contained
  in annex to document UNEP/CBD/BS/COP-MOP/3/10

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 27 Liability and Redress
• The third meeting considered a blueprint for a
  COP-MOP decision on international rules and
  procedures in the field of liability and redress
  for damage resulting from transboundary movements
  of living modified organisms.
• The Working Group discussed a synthesis of
  proposed operational texts on approaches, options
  and issues identified pertaining to liability and
  redress in the context of Art. 27 of the
  Biosafety Protocol.

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1. Socio-economic issues in Cartagena Protocol

• Article 27 Liability and Redress
• At the fourth meeting the Working Group
  streamlined the operational texts on approaches
  and options identified pertaining to liability
  and redress in the context of Article 27 of the
  Biosafety Protocol. The blueprint was also
  revised to reflect the changes agreed by the
  Working Group to the form and contents
• The Working Group has requested the Co-Chairs to
  do further streamlining on certain sections of
  the working document, and to produce a revised
  working draft for consideration by the Working
  Group at its fifth meeting, which will be held in
  March 2007 in Columbia, before COP9-MOP4 in Bonn,
  May, 2007.

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2. Socio-economic issues in the Convention on
Biological Diversity

• CBD Article 8(j) Gurts to traditional knowledge
• ( GURTs - Genetic use restrict
  technologies )
• Most developing countries and NGOs oppose GURTs,
  because it is not in accordance to CBD/ITPGRFA
  and it is harmful to small farmers for their
  rights to retain seeds. As it is not helpful to
  food security, they call for prohibiting the
  technologies by countrys legislation.
• But, Australia, New Zealand, USA and Argentina
  support to further research for developing and
  using GURTs
• GURTs may produce socio-economic problems for
  traditional knowledge of indigenous and local
  communities.

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2. Socio-economic issues in the Convention on
Biological Diversity

• Article 8(j) Gurts to traditional knowledge
• 8(j)-5 Ad Hoc Expert Group proposed to COP-8
• To request Parties, other countries and
  stakeholders to respect the farmers rights to
  use, retain and exchange seeds, as well as the
  rights to use the breeding materials.
• To enhance researches on impacts of GURTs on
  socio-economy, including risk assessment case by
  case.
• To request international institutions and
  organizations to study potential patent policies
  and patent applications for GURTs in future, as
  well as the impacts of GURTs on ethic and
  inspirit.

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3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• We did a questionnaire surveys to 1000 consumers
  from 12 supermarkets in Beijing, China, late
  2004, in order to reveal consumers attitudes on
  genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and GM
  foods.
• Some results are as below

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3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• 1. Consumers GMOs acquaintance
• In general, most respondents have little
  knowledge for GMOs and GM products in the
  markets. The investigated results show that 49.4
  respondents know little and 15.5 know nothing
  about GMOs and GM products, indicating totally
  64.9 respondents have no acquaintance to GMOs.
  While the other 32.8 respondents have generally
  acquaintance and just 2.3 are well-known.

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3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• 2. Consumers acquaintance to GMOs labeling.
• During the questionnaire interviewing, 45.3 of
  the respondents didnt know that the GMOs
  labeling system though it had been implemented in
  China and other 42.6 respondents couldnt
  identify the GMOs labels through they knew that
  the labeling system had been existed.
  Furthermore, data indicates that higher educated
  respondents have higher acquaintance and
  identification ability.

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3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• 3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs labeling.
• Totally 96.9 of the respondents had demands of
  GMOs labeling, of which 48.1 had demands for a
  highlighted labeling, 25.9 requested to use a
  double labeling system for both GMOs and non-GMOs
  in order to give consumers sufficient option
  rights, only 3.1 expressed that they didnt care
  for GMOs or non-GMOs.
• Further analysis on the categorized information,
  we can find that higher educated people usually
  have more demands for highlighted or double
  labeling, while lower educated people have less
  labeling demands.

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3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• 4. Attitude and propensity to consume GMO
  products
• 69 consumers trust traditional food, only 5.2
  trust GMO food and the rest accepts both.
  Furthermore, 55.7 respondents tends to consume
  traditional foods in their daily life, on the
  contrary, only 8.3 respondents choice GMOs food,
  the rest 36 have no ideas.
• The data shows that the lower educated
  respondents are more trustworthy to traditional
  food than higher educated people Younger people
  express more careless than old people. It
  indicates that young people and higher educated
  people are easy to accept new events while old
  people and lower educated people are relatively
  conservative

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3. Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• 5. Attitudes to GM technology development
• Consumers attitudes are mild for the issue.
  Respondents who chose actively develop and
  dont actively develop were both less, around
  10 respectively, while totally more than 80 of
  respondents chose appropriately develop (38.8)
  or develop the technology with caution in
  commercialization(41.7).

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Consumers attitudes to GMOs An interview
survey in Beijing

• 6. Attitude to foodstuff safety in the market of
  future
• Almost half (51.3) said have no idea for GMOs
  risks in foodstuff, 20.4 thought that the
  foodstuff will be a risk and another 28.3
  responded will not be a risk. This implies that
  GM food has an uncertainty for its risks on human
  health, biodiversity and environment, and
  actually most people are at a loss on how to deal
  with the GMO issue. Through some people worry
  about the risks, the majority believe government
  could regulate the foodstuff safety suitably.

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4. Farmers responses to Bt cotton A field
survey in 5 provinces

• In 2005, we did a field survey to interview 1000
  farmers for plantation of Bt cotton. The
  respondents were distributed in three
  representative regions for cotton plantation,
  i.e. Jiangsu and Anhui provinces for Yangtze
  River valley Shandong and Hebei Provinces for
  Yellow river valley and Xinjiang Autonomous
  Region. 200 farmers each.

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4. Farmers responses to Bt cotton A field
survey in 5 provinces

• Main findings
• We found that farmers continue to use higher
  levels of pesticide use than reported in previous
  studies, most likely to bring secondary pests
  under control.
• Another problem associated with the introduction
  of Bt cotton in China is the low awareness and
  knowledge of genetic modification by farmers.
• The liberalization of the Chinese seed market had
  profound negative effects on farmers, as many of
  them were confronted with counterfeit seed
  resulting in yield losses.

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Farmers responses to Bt cotton A survey in 5
provinces
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4. Farmers responses to Bt cotton A survey
in 5 provinces

• Why the farmers choice to plant Bt cotton

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4. Farmers responses to Bt cotton A survey
in 5 provinces

• Only 15 know transgenic cotton, 5.5 know Bt.
  Their information sources are as below

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4. Farmers responses to Bt cotton A survey
in 5 provinces

• 96 know Bt cotton oil is edible, 79 eat the
  oil. Reasons for not eating are as below

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4. Farmers responses to Bt cotton A survey
in 5 provinces

• What organization should be responsible for seed
  management, as seed market fraud problem

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Farmers responses to Bt cotton A survey in 5
provinces
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5. Conclusion

• Socio-economic impact is a key issue in Protocol
  forum
• More data for positive impacts, but less data for
  negative impacts
• Greater attention should be paid to researches on
  socio-economic impacts
• The researches can not be limited to GM crops,
  should extend to GM animals, trees, fishes and
  pharmaceuticals

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??!

• Thanks !