Argentina invests in technology to grow transgenic wheat

GM crops in Argentina, long questioned by environmentalists for years, see the wind blowing in their favor, with new technological developments and sanitary approvals abroad, when the world fears for food security.

The Argentine offer of GM (genetically modified) products is abundant and varied. Soybeans, corn, cotton, even wheat that is still in an experimental phase, are highlighted in the context of the Ukrainian War and this summer’s intense drought in Europe, which is linked to climate change.

Since transgenic soy was first planted in Argentina, in 1996, the area of ​​crops has reached 24 million hectares, and the intention is to go even further.

“Our goal is to reach 40% of the [de trigo] planted in Argentina over the next three to five years,” Federico Trucco, director general of the private company Bioceres, which developed drought-resistant HB4 wheat, told AFP.

“It has to do with areas where wheat productivity today is limited by [disponibilidade de] water”, he points out.

Argentina will have the worst wheat crop in the last twelve years in 2023 due to the drought caused by a third consecutive cycle of the climatic phenomenon “La Niña”, according to the Rosario Cereal Exchange.

“Superwheat”

The HB4 wheat, which Bioceres developed in partnership with Conicet (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research) and the National University of the Coast, came from a sunflower gene that allows it to tolerate drought.

So far it occupies about 100 thousand hectares. “Everything that is planted is to obtain seeds for future planting, not for processing and consumption,” Trucco said.

“There is no mass marketing because we still don’t have the right varieties in the right amount,” he explained.

The company’s goal is to commercialize HB4 wheat in Argentina and Brazil in a first stage, in three years, and then to commercialize it in Australia, in approximately five years.

The sowing of HB4 wheat was approved in Argentina last May, while Brazil and Australia have endorsed the use of HB4 flour since 2020.

HB4 wheat also gained US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval last June.

In April of this year, Argentine transgenics received a strong boost with the approval by China of HB4 soy, which had been under analysis in that country since 2016. The United States, Brazil and Paraguay had already validated it in 2019 and Canada in 2021.

GM crops represent 63% of Argentina’s agricultural area and 13% of the global area, which places the country behind the United States and Brazil.

For environmentalists, the intervention of biotechnology in agriculture has consequences for health because it favors the use of increasingly toxic herbicides.

“It is necessary to weigh not only the effect of the individual herbicide, but also the way in which it interacts with other chemicals,” Guillermo Folguera, a biologist and researcher at Conicet, told AFP.

There is also concern that the advance of transgenics will deteriorate biodiversity and the soil due to the displacement of the agricultural frontier, as occurred in the late 1990s with the soy boom.

“This deterioration of the soils due to the intense monocultures results in lower productivity that we seek to compensate with fertilizers”, according to Folguera.

In Gualeguaychú, 240 km north of Buenos Aires, the ban on planting HB4 wheat is being discussed. In 2014, it vetoed the use of glyphosate, an essential herbicide for soybeans.

“It is very likely that a crop of transgenic wheat will contaminate another with common wheat. Cross-contamination is risky because there is no turning back,” warned Folguera.

This could harm exports to countries where transgenics are still banned, warned Gustavo Idígoras, president of the Oil Industry Chamber and the Cereal Export Center.

“Biotechnology is the only way to guarantee food safety in the world, but it must go hand in hand with commercial and consumer acceptance,” he emphasized.