Team:Marburg/Human Practices/Farmers
Farmers
"There must be a European solution [to the legal situation concerning GMOs], it must be the same for all of Europe - from Malta to Finland and from Ireland to Romania." – Ulrich Zick
At the start of our project, we already saw the possible appliances cell-free chloroplasts possess, thus becoming aware of the broader impact our project could have on green genetic engineering. We became conscious of the possible application of crops and what we can do to increase the acceptance of our easier and safer way to generate the next generation of plants. We came to the conclusion to interview local farmers, as farmers are the key stakeholders of our project, we were especially interested in their opinion of our project and of GMOs itself. For us it was important to learn whether there is a difference between conventional and ecological farmers in their willingness to plant GMO crops on their fields. Thus, what they think about the future of genetic engineering, regulations and risks concerning this topic.
In the first step we tried contacting local farmers via mail, without any luck of getting an interview. Our apprehension was that many farmers were not eager to openly talk about their opinions about GMOs. Our second approach was to contact the “Hessischer Bauernverband" - the Association of farmers in Hesse, the state Marburg lies in. We were already in contact with the “Deutscher Bauernverband” – the German Association of farmers – due to an interview, so asking the “Hessischer Bauernverband” for help was only a natural decision. Promptly after a brief talk, we got in contact with two local farmers: Ulrich Zick and Jens Eidam. Both of them were eager to hold an interview with us about their current handling of agriculture, their opinion of GMOs as well as what the future might bring concerning the usage of GMOs.
Ulrich Zick – living in Fronhausen, southern county of Marburg, and refers to himself as a conventional farmer with some ecological traces. His 150 hectares of land are being used to plant cereal, sugar beets, grain legumes and corn. In addition, Mr. Zick owns a livestock farm for which the cultivated cereals are mostly used as fodder. However, he confirmed buying GMO-fodder from South America because of his low yield, though he would like to be independent from the import. This is one of the reasons why he sees no future in purely organic or conventional cultivation. In his opinion, organic farming must become more reliable in terms of regular high yield amounts. This is reflected in papers which show that organic yield amount is, on average, 20 % less compared to conventional yield amount. [1]
Ulrich Zick is completely independent on the choice of which seeds to use. He obtains his seed locally, partly from his own harvest of line varieties, where a breeder's license fee must be paid and additionally from a local institute. Depending on the crop planted he uses different fungicides and insecticides, one of which is also used in ecological farming. Furthermore he makes use of yearly crop rotation practices.
Additionally to legal obstacles, he would not want to plant GMOs due to the fear of monopolization by the industries. Besides his worries, he is pro GMO especially because of climate change. He clearly stated to see a paradigm shift, seeing the environment changing - a direct consequence of climate change. The growing seasons start earlier and last longer. In addition, the weather phases are longer, for example long raining seasons. This leads to the fact if one makes a mistake when fertilizing or tilling the soil, it could be fatal for the harvest due to the long lasting rain. To combat the symptoms of man-made climate change and to feed the ever-growing population, new varieties are needed quickly - obtainable through fast and specific GMO development. Ulrich Zick sees no alternatives to genetic engineering in the coming years. However, considers a fusion of organic farming and GMOs to be possible. He clearly emphasizes the importance of society's acceptance of GMOs, where, in his mind, a transfer of knowledge paves the way for an international European solution.
Jens Eidam – living in Weimar (Lahn), a south county of Marburg, is dedicated to organic farming as a part-time farmer. The size of his fields measure 95 hectares. He prioritizes quality over quantity, also because he is not dependent on yield as it only makes up some of his income. Mr. Eidam leads his farm for 20 years already and has made a bad experience: Tilletia caries, a fungi causing common bunt in wheat, infected his fields. The pathogen outbreak was treated with ecological mustard flour pickle. Sadly the treatment was too expensive and time-consuming for Mr. Eidam. Due to that incident, Eidam carefully - as well as strategically like he said himself – selects the varieties he wants to grow and works with crop rotation.
Mr. Eidam buys certified seeds every two years. The following year he takes the seeds from the previous harvest to save costs. Nevertheless, license fees have to be paid because of the breeding of previously purchased seeds, but these are about half as cheap as buying new seeds.
Besides Ulrich Zick, Eidam also notes the influence of climate change as atypical weather was predominant this year. In addition, according to him, the weather forecast could not be relied upon, which made handling the fields harder. Knowing the weather is essential since farmers rely on it, without the knowledge planning a harvest is basically impossible. For example if the grain is too wet it can not be harvested and it takes time to organise machines for harvesting. GMOs cannot change the weather, but they can handle the effects of climate change.
His fears of GMOs revolve around not being able to sell his products anymore because of public acceptance, his skepticism of new routines and possible contamination on fields. Because of his attentiveness to his fields and his current success in the business, he sees no reason to change his practices. However, knowing that we will exceed the 1.5 degree limit without drastic changes, he can imagine that at some point he will have to resort to GMOs, because there will be no alternatives in the near future. What he would love to see in a GMO, rather than a yield increase, is better quality. The increase in quality means to him to heighten the nutritional content of his harvest, for example boosting grain fullness of oats or having a higher protein content of wheat. Despite being one of the last to grow GMOs now, he might be persuaded to do so if he could be assured that no contamination to neighbouring fields was taking place.
“We [organic farmers] will be the hardest to convince” - Jens Eidam
Both of them were a huge help for working on our “GVO Infolet”. The idea about writing a booklet was simple from the start: helping to clear out any insecurities about planting GMOs on fields, combating misinformation, as well giving them the opportunity to make an informed decision and hopefully being able to accept GMOs in their everyday life. As addressing local farmers was our main goal, we composed the booklet in German to ensure reaching everyone in the vicinity of Marburg.
But our idea mostly intensified through the interviews held with the local farmers Ulrich Zick and Jens Eidam. They showed great interest in the topic of genetic engineering even though they were suited with strong opinions on either the pro or con side.
Ulrich Zick wished for an objective view on the techniques practiced in the generation of GMOs, without forgetting the risks of planting them. Besides these risks, he would like to have an outlook on the next few years with a closer focus on the good and bad aspects of the soon-to-be subject of research. An enormously important topic not only for Ulrich Zick but also for Jens Eidam turns out to be a not too scientific approach. Farmers are a very heterogeneous group in regards to their level of education, so Jens Eidam, for whom a slimmed-down version of the detailed science part would suffice. He admitted to not being up to date with the latest scientific findings, but stated that he would like to learn more about the benefits of applying GMOs on fields. Not only the scientific aspects are important to him, but also the legal framework that currently applies throughout Germany as well as Europe.
Taking our interview partner's valuable wishes into account, we started working on the brochure as soon as possible. After a month it was done: our GVO Infolet!
In 26 pages we summed up the most important pointers one needs to know about genetic engineering and GMOs. Our “GVO Infolet” (GVO being the German equivalent to GMO) covers a timeline of the history of agriculture and GMOs in the beginning to give the reader a solid overview of the development of genetic engineering starting with the first cultivation of crops around 8000 AD and ending with the current situation in Germany and Europe where no commercial GMO crop cultivation occurs.
Following this, the current legal situation is explained in more detail. Germany has banned the cultivation of Bt-maize since 2009 due to a safeguard clause that was introduced. Bt-maize acts as the key example throughout the booklet, as it was the single GMO allowed to be planted by the EFSA in Europe. Continuing with the usage of genetically modified plants, especially crops in this perspective, such genetic modifications are made for various reasons, e.g. maximizing yield, minimizing the infestation of insects and fungi, achieving a balanced diet for consumers or producing plants adapted to climate change in our case some day.
Subsequently to the already applied usage of modified crops the focus is placed on current as well as planned research. After showing the reader the legal backbone, the benefits of the usage of GMOs, the risks that lie in planting genetically modified plants are highlighted using the examples of Bt-maize and glyphosate resistance. In the following chapter, methods are introduced to prevent contamination to other fields through measures in the development of seeds, as well as means that can be done to physically prevent a GMO escaping from a field. Lastly, we wanted to emphasize the importance of transparent practices in such highly disputed topics by providing easily accessible sources for everyone. Our aim is to motivate farmers, also all interested readers in general, to do research on their own to learn more about genetic engineering.
As our idea came from interviewing farmers, we dedicated our GVO Infolet to farmers. So we decided to distribute them to local farmers and the “Hessischer Bauernverband” to express our appreciation.
We visited the local market to hand out our booklets to farmers who came there to sell their products. Though we do not exactly know if they read it, they thankfully took the booklet - even the ecological farmers. Of course we could not forget about Ulrich Zick and Jens Eidam. We personally handed over the booklets to them to show them our gratitude for taking the time to talk to us about such a controversial subject. The feedback we got overwhelmed us: they were surprised by the amount of information summed up in the small booklet. Not only the size impressed them, but also the objectiveness expressed in the texts. That said, our idea can be described as a success!
Sources
- Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N., & Foley, J. A. (2012). Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture. In Nature (Vol. 485, Issue 7397, pp. 229–232). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11069