By Dr Tasneem Ahmad
The writer is a former Associate Professor of Entomology at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The approval of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Policy has set the stage for a major technological shift in Pakistan. Yet, the real battlefield reportedly has moved to the Prime Minister’s Committee on Genetically Modified (GM) maize, chaired by the finance minister. As the committee conducts its “science-based and evidence-driven review” to decide on commercial licensing, a deeper, structural crisis looms. While corporate entities argue that biotech is the key to national food security, the policy threatens to alter the fate of the majority of Pakistan’s smallholders, who form the vulnerable backbone of our rural economy.
The Promise: Yields, Resilience, and Economic Gains
Proponents of GM maize, led by biotech bodies currently members of CropLife Pakistan, present a compelling macroeconomic case. Pakistan’s climate vulnerability is no longer a future threat; it is a current reality. Severe heatwaves, shifting monsoon patterns, and devastating insect pests like Spodoptera frugiperda, Chilo partellus, and Helicoverpa armigera routinely decimate yields.
GM seeds, engineered for pest resistance, herbicides, and drought tolerance, offer an immediate remedy. For Pakistan’s booming poultry, livestock, and feed mill industries, GM maize promises a stable, high-volume domestic supply chain. By maximizing per-acre yields, the country could theoretically reduce its reliance on grain and soybean imports, saving precious foreign exchange reserves. Furthermore, built-in pest resistance reduces the need for expensive chemical pesticides, offering an environmental and financial reprieve to large-scale, well-capitalized cultivators.
The Risks: Contamination and Export Threats
However, from a strict plant protection, trade, and regulatory standpoint, the policy is a double-edged sword. Cultivating GM maize risks shutting Pakistan out of premium, non-GM export destinations, most notably the European Union, which maintains strict anti-GMO regulations. Beyond maize itself, the commercialization of a GM crop threatens Pakistan’s multi-billion-dollar mainstream agricultural exports, particularly Basmati rice, sesame, fruits, vegetables, and other organic commodities.
Maize is an open, cross-pollinated crop driven by the wind, making physical segregation a logistical impossibility under Pakistan’s increasingly fragmented land-holding system (Agricultural Census 2024). Pollen drift will inevitably contaminate neighboring conventional fields.
More alarmingly, if GM traits accidentally commingle with export-bound non-GM shipments due to shared transport, storage, and processing infrastructure, the economic fallout would be catastrophic. Pakistan’s premium Basmati rice holds a prized position in the EU and Middle Eastern markets precisely due to its GMO-free status. Even a trace detection of unapproved genetically modified material in a single export consignment can trigger automatic bans, widespread rejections, and a complete loss of market trust that took decades to build. The contamination of our supply chain would deal a fatal blow to our rice export revenues and destabilize our national biosafety framework.
The Socio-Economic Cost for Small Farmers
The most devastating impact of GM commercialization lies in its socio-economic consequences for small farmers owning less than 12 acres or so. Traditionally, Pakistani farmers survive by saving a portion of their harvest as seed for the next season. Multinational Corporations’ (MNC) GM seeds dismantle this centuries-old safety net. They are legally protected by strict international intellectual property patents and biologically engineered for single-use.
Global lessons from other developing nations, from parts of Africa to cotton-growing belts in India, show that when corporate monopolies take over the seed market, traditional farming systems break down. If GM maize becomes the market standard in Pakistan, smallholders will be forced to buy expensive, patented corporate seeds every single season. Lacking formal credit lines, small farmers must rely on high-interest informal lenders. The exorbitant cost of MNC seeds, paired with the specific companion chemical inputs they require, will trap vulnerable farmers in inescapable cycles of debt.
The economic disparity will widen dramatically across the rural landscape:
- Corporate Farms: Wealthy, mechanized corporate farms will easily afford MNC technology, driving their yields up.
- Smallholders: Cash-strapped smallholders will be priced out entirely, unable to afford the entry cost of corporate agriculture.
Left with inferior conventional seeds or facing accidental cross-contamination, smallholders will see their yields lag far behind corporate giants. Unable to compete with corporate-backed economies of scale, smallholders will face inevitable displacement—forced to lease or sell their ancestral lands and transition from independent, self-reliant farmers to low-wage day laborers on their own soil.
A Way Forward: Safeguards and Public Research
Technology should serve humanity, not corporate monopolies. If the PM’s Committee allows the commercialization of GM maize, it must enforce stringent safeguards to protect the vulnerable:
- Targeted Subsidies: The government must introduce heavily subsidized GM seed distribution programs targeted exclusively at smallholders.
- Strict Zoning: Regulatory zoning laws must be established to physically isolate GM corporate farming from conventional smallholder tracts to prevent contamination of neighboring fields and export supply chains.
- Public Sector Investment: Most importantly, Pakistan must invest aggressively in its public-sector research institutions, like the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC) and collaboration with provinces.
By developing affordable, domestically owned GM seeds, Pakistan can modernize its agriculture without surrendering its seed sovereignty to foreign corporations. Progress is vital, but it must not be built on the poverty of Pakistan’s peasants or the destruction of our vital export sectors.
Existing premium hybrid maize seeds already achieve high yields of 120 maunds per acre, and GM technology is not a comprehensive solution for pest management. Based on the past failure of Bt Cotton in the country, extreme caution is recommended before adopting genetically modified crops.