A couple of weeks ago, I was asked by a friend of mine, Jim Cheetham, to come into his class on Biotechnology and Society and talk about agricultural biotechnology from an Anthropologist viewpoint.  Jim will talk for a while on the modern technology and I’ll be talking about the ancient versions - and about their social effects.

When we, as a species, first started domesticating plants about 12,000 years ago, we went through some major changes both physiologically (we grew shorter, suffered a lot of repetitive strain injury, died younger, etc.) and culturally (stayed in the same place, built villages and towns, developed a lot of technology and invented bureaucrats).  It wasn’t until the start of the 20th century that our lifespans returned to what they had been in our hunter-gatherer days, and then only in the relatively prosperous areas of the world.  “Civilization”, as we use the term, derives from this Agricultural Revolution right alongside with the growth of towns and cities: it is a by-product of the symbiosis of human and plant and animal, and we were all changed as a result.

So, here we are in the 21st century and we have the technology to directly change the genetic structures of plants (and animals and humans).  What can history teach us that can be a useful guide to using his new technology?  Well, there are certain points that come out quite clearly:

1. Reliance on a few crops means that we have increased our vulnerability.
2. Reliance on a transportation networks to provide our food means that we are more vulnerable.
3. Reliance on a highly limited number of food providers means that we are recreating a very old civilizational model.

Let’s take each point in turn.

Reliance on a few crops means that we have increased our vulnerability.   The Sumerians tried this and, by 2700bce, they discovered some of the problems with it.  Reliance on a limited number of crops means that we, as a species, are reliant on the survival and prosperity of these crops.  What happens when there are crop-specific blights? In North America, we have been conditioned to look for a technology answer - “New Pesticides!” - brought to you, often enough, by the same companies that sell you your seeds.

The Sumerians didn’t have new pesticides but, what they did have, was a variety of wheat that leached minerals out of the soil.  By 2700 bce, the salt concentration in their soild, at least in the southern cities, was so high that hey had to convert to new crops.  The Mayans had a similar problem - they drained their soil and, over a mere 200 years, the Mayan cities collapsed as their soil could no longer sustain their agricultural practices.  If anyone thinks that this can’t happen now, can we say “Dustbowl”?

Reliance on a transportation networks to provide our food means that we are more vulnerable. One of the nice things about the modern world is the apparent variety of fruits, vegetables and grains we can get.  I remember my grandmother talking about getting oranges for Christmas when she was a child; they were very rare.  But, in order to get the varieties we now have, we have to transport them from the places where they grow.  This means that we are reliant for a large amount of our food on other nations and on the transport networks.  What happens if the cost of transportation rises or if the transport networks are disrupted?

Reliance on a highly limited number of food providers means that we are recreating a very old civilizational model. There are two “types” of food providers we have to consider: food produced in other nations, and food crops “owned” by trans-national corporations (TNCs) such as Monsato.  Food is often used as a bargaining chip in inter-state conflicts - consider, by way of example, the role played by American wheat in he US-Soviet cold war of the past century.  Food crops are now, thanks to the ability to patent genetic code sequences, “owned” by some TNCs.  This ownership makes the farmers who use these seeds reliant upon the company, especially since many of the grain produced is sterile.  Indirectly, many of these TNCs are able to exert a form of sovereignty - not in geographic terms, but in terms of basic foodstuffs.

Based solely on foodstuffs, we can see that our global “civilization” is, in actuality, fairly vulnerable.  This is true even if we were at peace, globally, which we are not.