Assessing Socio-Economic Impacts of GMOs

Executive Summary This Report This report is motivated by the conclusions of EU Council of Environment Ministers of December 4, 2008, asking the European Commission to explore the possibility to consider other factors beyond health and environmental risks, i.e. " socioeconomic benefits and risks and agronomic sustainability " (all covered by the term socioeconomic in this report) in GMO market authorisation. While socioeconomic issues have played a major role in the long standing EU debate on GMOs, there is, however, very little experience in explicitly and systematically assessing socioeconomic impacts of GMOs. Against this backdrop, this report aims to identify and explore the issues relevant to the topic and provide recommendations for policy development and further research. Research was structured along the following main questions: (i) what are socioeconomic effects of GMOs and what are the relevant issues and controversies? (ii) Whether and how can socioeconomic effects be differentiated or clustered e.g. according to the specific GMO, the intended application or the type of release? (iii) How could socioeconomic effects be assessed in the course of GMO market authorisations? Furthermore (iv), the study should explore the awareness and views of Austrian stakeholders on this topic. The study draws on a review of published literature and policy documents as well as phone interviews with stakeholders in Austria. Socioeconomic considerations in the literature There is a substantial body of literature on anticipated and documented impacts of GM crops beyond the health and environmental dimension. These impacts are referred to as economic, agronomic, agro-environmental, societal, social, socioeconomic etc. The term 'socioeconomic' seems to be used very broadly as involving a combination of social and economic factors. With the possible exception of ethical issues, the term appears to cover almost everything which does not fit into the health and environmental risk box. As the scope of " other factors " in GMO authorisation is not yet clear it is considered pertinent to keep the vagueness of the term in this report. The majority of the publicly available literature investigates economic effects. Studies on developing countries have a strong bias towards farm level effects and cotton. Many reports can be traced to either industry and close-to-industry sources or to environmental NGO sources. Comprehensive studies from public authorities or independent organisations are scarce. Two examples are briefly described: a study compiled by the UK Cabinet Office in the course of the GM Nation exercise, and a …