Bolivia: yet another testing ground for GMOs?

“We want bread that will heal us, not make us sick”, says Ignacio Fontclara, a Paraguayan baker. His sector has launched the campaign “Poison-free bread”, together with Indigenous and peasant organisations. They oppose the resolution issued in May of this year underhandedly approving GM wheat variety HB4. The Paraguayan movement has been coordinating with grassroots resistance organised in Argentina and Brazil. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, under the slogan “GM wheat out of Africa”, other movements are denouncing that South Africa's importation of Argentine HB4 wheat also exposes Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia and Namibia.

Among the multiple reasons voiced by social organisations and the scientific community to reject this crop, the risks to health, to food and the environment particularly stand-out the most. The main reasons for this are, firstly, the use of the herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, which is more toxic than the controversial glyphosate, and secondly, the rapid contamination of other wheat varieties. Despite this, in three years, GM wheat has been spreading. Following confirmed production and marketing in Argentina, Brazil agreed not only to import HB4 wheat flour, but also to plant it, in a process plagued by irregularities. Since then, some countries have continued to issue import approvals for human and animal consumption in Australia, Colombia, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa and Indonesia. Acceptance in Indonesia is of concern, as it is among the world's leading importers of wheat.

The domino effect now also threatens Bolivia, a country where a grassroots anti-GM campaign had done its best to enshrine safeguards in the Constitution itself. In 2019, even before its approval in Argentina, Bioceres, the company that developed HB4 wheat, met with the Bolivian Oilseed and Wheat Producers’ Association (Asociación de Productores de Oleaginosas y Trigo, ANAPO) to establish a “technology alliance”. The following year, the authorities sparked huge controversy by giving the green light to GM seeds of maize, sugar cane, cotton, wheat and soybean through fast-track procedures. However, this measure was reversed with the change of government.

Pressure from ANAPO did not stop there. In 2022, it submitted a request for evaluation and approval of HB4 wheat to the Food Biosafety Committee, whose decision is still pending. “This technological innovation offers us the opportunity to secure our harvests, and increase the area sown and production to achieve the country's long-awaited food sovereignty”, explained the president of the association. An optimistic point of view, if we bear in mind that after the sowing of this crop during the 2023/2024 wheat season in Argentina, even agricultural companies cast doubts on whether it would produce higher yields compared to non-GM varieties.

Bolivian agribusiness puts forth a few reasons in its defence of GM wheat, including the dependence on wheat imports, issues related to smuggling, and drought, which the HB4 wheat variety is purportedly resistant to. This is a vicious circle given that the spread of industrial farming, where other GM crops are prominent, is inextricably linked to these phenomena.

Bolivia certainly has a wheat supply problem. In 2022, 310,000 tons were produced. As they were unable to satisfy the national demand of almost 800,000 tons, flour and seeds were imported, particularly from Argentina. Miguel Ángel Crespo, from Probioma explains that this staple crop has been neglected since the mid-1980s, as other export crops were prioritised. According to national statistics, 210,000 hectares are dedicated to this crop, with 65% of this land located in the Santa Cruz department. By comparison, soy, mainly earmarked for the Colombian, Peruvian and Chilean markets, occupies 1.5 million hectares. This is no less than one third of all cultivated land in the country.

In 2019, the government created the multisectoral programme to promote wheat production (Programa Multisectorial de Fomento a la Producción de Trigo), with the aim of subsidising up to 15% of the price of certified seeds, and ensuring the purchase of grain at competitive prices by the Food Production Support Company (Empresa de Apoyo a la Producción de Alimentos, EMAPA). Two years later, under the government of Jeanine Áñez, it was reported that this company had agreed the purchase of 30,000 tons of GM wheat with the US company, Duron LLC. The purchase did not materialise due to irregularities by Duron, who then filed for an international arbitration award against Bolivia, which it lost in 2022. Whether through EMAPA or not, the smuggling of other GM grains from Argentina has been evident for several years. The major risk in the case of HB4 wheat is that it follows the model that made it possible for GM soya and maize to be introduced.

According to Fundación Solón, practically all the soya grown in Bolivia is the GM soybean event 40-3-2 (glyphosate tolerant). Santa Cruz holds 80% of that production. The expansion has followed the same pattern as in Brazil and Paraguay: the smuggling of Monsanto seeds from Argentina in the 1990s until the crops are sown on a scale that justifies their legalisation. In the Bolivian case, the latter took place in 2005, despite strong opposition from peasant and environmental organisations. Currently, there is pressure from soya businesses for the approval of the drought-resistant variety, on the grounds that they claim their crops are "stagnating". This process began in 2019 with the authorisation of fast-track procedures for evaluation of two types (HB4 and Intacta) intended for the production of agrofuels. This could be successfully approved in 2024.

The case of GM maize is similar, although its introduction is more recent and is facing strong resistance as Bolivia is home to a large diversity of native varieties. The risk of genetic contamination is of concern, particularly because this crop is deeply rooted in Bolivian culture, and each variety has a specific use in traditional cuisine. In 2015, reports of illegal crops began, which could be explained by seed smuggling and government approval of temporary imports of Argentine grains, without tariffs or genetic analysis. One year later, over 60,000 hectares of BT and RR maize were found in Santa Cruz. The National Institute for Agricultural and Forestry Innovation (Instituto de Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria y Forestal, INIA) itself recently admitted GM soya and maize trials. According to the researcher Gonzalo Colque, nowadays “almost all yellow maize production is genetically modified”. In Santa Cruz, these crops would account for 70-80% of the total maize produced.

The argument used by agribusiness is the same as the one put forward for soya: ANAPO openly admits the existence of illegal crops and claims to apply the logic of fait accompli to push for their legalisation. Furthermore, the Eastern Chamber of Agriculture (Cámara Agropecuaria del Oriente) is calling for the release of even more GM maize varieties: glyphosate-resistant, BT and HB4. Soybean agribusinesses, in particular, confirm how useful maize is in crop rotation, because they say it makes it possible to apply the same minimum tillage methods and agrochemicals used for legumes. Indeed, this area is of particular interest to the Association of Agricultural Input Suppliers (Asociación de Proveedores de Insumos Agropecuarios, APIA), a Bolivian group that includes agribusiness transnationals such as Yara, ADM, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and UPL. The latter four are among the main global companies that market glufosinate-ammonium. According to customs records, UPL India sent samples of this substance to its Bolivian subsidiary in 2021 and 2022.

Another reason behind the pressure for GM crops from agribusiness is land speculation. For large land owners in Santa Cruz, “the freedom to use more GMOs and agro-toxins is synonymous with higher prices for the sale of land they own [...], to capitalise on their importing companies of agricultural inputs, to improve their income from renting land”, explains Gonzalo Colque.

Transnationals are part of the equation. In 2017, Fundación Tierra tracked the presence of agribusiness giants such as ADM, Cargill, Bunge and Louis Dreyfus in the equity of Bolivian agribusiness companies.

Trase reported that the intensity of forest loss for soybean farming in Bolivia is thirty times higher than in Argentina and seven times higher than in Brazil. Although Mennonite colonies are responsible for a third of this deforestation, large companies such as Cargill are also involved. In twenty years, legumes have resulted in the loss of over 900,000 hectares of Amazon forests, which has become more visible with the dramatic forest fires ravaging the country.

In 2019, the International Rights of Nature Tribunal determined that the forest fires in Bolivia constituted a case of ecocide. The following year, the situation was even worse and 26 Indigenous territories were severely affected. The government explained that the fire was caused by slash and burn practices carried out by large and medium-sized agribusinesses, cattle ranchers, community members, as well as ill-intentioned individuals. Other voices link the degradation of the forests to the current legislative framework intended primarily to expand food production. According to Fundación Tierra, not only have the existing laws failed to achieve this objective, they have also meant that more and more land is being cleared and fires are occurring in new areas prioritised for monoculture export crops.

“It’s awful to witness this situation, after four months of drought, now there are fires”, laments Josefina Suárez, a peasant farmer from the northern Amazonian region of Bolivia. Much further south, in Pantanal, on the largest floodplain on the planet shared by Brazil and Paraguay, over one million hectares have burned and 3,000 fire outbreaks remain active. At a national level, almost three million hectares have been razed by flames this year.

It is clear that fire is devastating the territories of entire communities and areas rich in biodiversity. As pointed out by Agro é Fogo, it is a vicious circle involving the expansion of farming frontiers linked to land grabbing and drought caused by the climate crisis. A recent study demonstrated that, compared to 1980s records, the average temperature in Santa Cruz has increased by 1.1º C, almost double the global average. Extreme events have also multiplied and there is 27% less rainfall than 40 years ago. The conclusion is clear: the climate crisis is both a consequence and a cause of uncontrolled expansion of agriculture and unbridled deforestation. Against this backdrop, promoting more HB4 GMOs as a response to drought is akin to trying to extinguish a blaze by adding fuel to the fire.

Despite the advance of GMOs and pressure from agribusiness, peasant farming continues to collectively preserve and innovate seeds. In the Global South, it is estimated that between 70% and 90% of crops sown each year come from peasant seeds. In addition, the main source of food for 70% of the world's population comes from small-scale peasant farming, artisanal fishing, herding, gathering and urban vegetable gardens.

In Bolivia, according to CIPCA, 96% of agricultural production units (APUs) are from family farming, working on less than half of all arable land. Three types stand out: subsistence, transitional and consolidated. The first two, which account for 70% of the APUs, are geared towards their own consumption and the domestic market, while the third also provides products for export. In total, family farming provides up to 87.6% of food crops and 98.5% of the 39 basic food staples (excluding wheat and rice).

Perhaps one of the country’s most precious resources lies in people’s capacity to organise. This is evident from social platforms focused on resistance to GMOs, the growth of agroecology production and distribution networks, as well as organisations such as CONTIOCAP[1], for example. Which is why we can still be hopeful that Bolivia will not continue to be another testing ground for GMOs.