PG Economics

This article is part of the Foodspin project of Spinwatch.

Peter Barfoot and Graham Brookes are co-directors of the UK-based company PG Economics Ltd - "Independent and objective consultants servicing the agricultural, agricultural supply trade, rural and food industries".

PG Economics has produced a number of reassuring reports dealing with the economic and strategic issues of GMO crops through the food chain. These reports have generated company press releases such as:

• "GM and non GM arable crops can co-exist in the EU without problems: says new research paper"

• "Co-existence of GM and non GM crops in the UK can occur without problems"

• "GM opponents' theory on co-existence 'exaggerated' according to new report"

• "Coexistence thought possible for maize in Spain"

as well as headlines such as:

• "New study supports GM crop co-existence"

• "Consultants say biotech crops easily coexist with conventional and organic"

• "GM contamination claims 'exaggerated', claims study"

• "Successful co-existence for GM food crops in 5 steps, new research"

• "GM crops good for both economy, environment: new report"

For the biotechnology industry, such headlines are, literally, good news, particularly when generated by an "independent and objective" source. BioScience UK, the website of GM company Bayer CropScience, made plain its excitement about PG Economics' 2004 report, "Co-existence of GM and non GM arable crops: the non GM and organic context in the EU":

Can GM and non-GM crops really co-exist in the European Union? According to the respected economic consultants group PG Economics, yes they can!!

BioScience UK did not mention that the report was commissioned by Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe (ABE), an industry lobby group whose members include Bayer CropScience, as well as BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Dupont, Monsanto and Syngenta. Nor was it mentioned by PG Economics in its press release of the report's findings. ABE's commissioning role was mentioned in the report but without clarification of ABE's membership or of the fact that it is an industry body.

PG Economics says of its customers, 'Our clients come from both public and private sectors. These include the leading biotechnology companies, agro-chemical manufacturers, seed companies & plant breeders, animal feed ingredient manufacturers, breakfast cereal manufacturers, oilseed crushers, food processors, starch/sweetener manufacturers, farmers organisations, UK government (eg, DEFRA) and the European Commission.'

According to PG Economics, the company's "Philosophy and Attributes" include, 'Active customer involvement in the development of consultancy project targets and implementation'.

PG Economics also assures potential customers that from the initial point of contact it will 'endeavour to put forward a proposal to define our methodology and expected outcomes' (see screengrab, right).

PG Economics screengrab taken 18 May 2010. The company promises clients to "endeavour to put forward a proposal to define our methodology and expected outcomes".

As well as Agricultural Biotechnology in Europe (ABE), the company's customers are known to have included ABE's UK equivalent, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council (ABC) , Du Pont, American Cyanamid, the American Soybean Association, Novartis, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, Monsanto Europe, the European Commission, Cebecco, Weetabix and the UK Government's Cabinet Office Strategy Unit.

There is a striking congruence between the known goals of some of these organisations and the findings of the research they have commissioned. For instance, the report GM Rice: Will This Lead the Way for Global Acceptance of GM Crop Technology? was commissioned by the biotech-industry backed International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), which works to achieve the rapid transfer of GM crops into the developing world.

PG Economics' ISAAA report concludes that the adoption of GM rice by developing countries would mean:

for consumers - lower real prices, greater security of supply, and the availability of nutritionally enhanced rice;

for farmers - reductions in costs ofproduction, higher yields, greaterflexibility/convenience in production, and additionalrevenues;

for developing countries - improved food security, improved health and welfare for their people, and environmental benefits.

The only losers from the adoption of GM rice in developing countries, according to the projections in the report, would be (a) those farmers who failed to adopt GM rice and (b) the biotech industry itself which would make little money out of its adoption while losing sales of pesticides. On the other hand, GM rice would be so successful that it would lead to 'spin off' gains 'for adoption of GM technology in other crops' and in encouraging the global acceptance of GM.

In terms of biotech industry PR, the findings of the PG Economics' report read like a dream come true. Its carefully argued conclusions are, in fact, indistinguishable from the industry's own promotional claims.

The key findings of the report press released as Co-existence of GM and non GM crops in the UK can occur without problems, says new research paper, were also music to the ears of the customer that commissioned it - the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, which is made up of biotechnology companies anxious to see the early introduction of GM crops into the UK. The ABC's member companies are BASF, Bayer, CropScience, Dow, AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta. Once again PG Economics' press release failed to mention who had commissioned the report, while the report itself failed to make clear that the ABC, whose initials are remarkably similar to those of the AEBC - the Government's Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission, is a biotech industry body.

Another PG Economics report, which argued that GM crops coexisted successfully with conventional and organic crops in the United States, led to accusations that the company had misrepresented findings of an organic farmers' survey in order to support its premise. The paper stated that claims by 'anti-GM groups' that GM and non-GM crops cannot coexist in North America were 'greatly exaggerated' and that coexistence measures had 'been delivering effective coexistence for nearly nine years'.

The paper's conclusions were heavily based on a 2002 survey by the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF). According to Ken Roseboro the OFRF survey, in fact, showed 'the exact opposite: that GM crops are starting to cause economic and operational hardships to organic farmers'.

Roseboro writes, 'The main problem with PG Economics' findings is that they ignored the fact that the OFRF survey was included organic farmers in areas where GM corn and soybeans are not grown. In fact, the survey had 1,034 respondents, but only 100 to 150 (ie a maximum of about 15%) produced corn or soybeans and were at-risk from GM crops.

'Farmers who live in Midwestern states, where the majority of GM corn and soybeans are grown, reported significant impacts. In these states, 70 to 80% of respondents reported negative impacts from GMOs. In addition, up to 88% of organic farmers in Midwestern states said they had to take some measures to protect their farms from GMO contamination. By quoting only the nationwide statistics the PG Economics authors, Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot, are able to minimise the problems caused to non-GM and organic growers.' (Biotech, organic coexistence research paper skews facts to support dubious conclusion)

That Brookes and Barfoot might feel more sympathetic to the biotechnology industry rather its critics would not be surprising. Not only is their company heavily dependent on both GM crops as a research issue and GM industry customers, but Barfoot has spent most of his career either working in the biotech industry or in businesses dependent on it.

Two years before he co-founded PG Economics, he launched the website of BioPortfolio Limited, of which he is still the MD. The site claims to offer 'a global directory on biotechnology businesses and acts as a 'jump site' to corporate web sites, news and stock prices.'

During the mid-1990s Barfoot was also involved with Meredith Lloyd-Evans of BioBridge Associates - a biotechnology business development consultancy. Barfoot and Lloyd-Evans also jointly authored, EU Boasts Good Science Base and Economic Prospects for Crop Biotechnology

Lloyd-Evans is a fervent supporter of 'crop biotechnology', describing Greenpeace's opposition to GM crops as having 'no science behind it' and having 'much more of the flavour of a sustained witch-hunt, based on the same kind of doctrinaire and destructive propaganda that underpinned Lysenko's diatribes against rational plant and animal genetics in the US (mainly aimed at his scientific and political rivals and doubly devastating because of the support he obtained from Stalin), Goebbels's and Goering's campaigns against non-Aryan activities, including science and other pursuits that might lead to national progress, and Pol Pot's dehumanisation of his invented ideological opponents'. (AgBioView) Lloyd-Evans has also attacked the 'organic movements' as being 'more like extremist religious cults than logical realists'. On the role of GM critics in relation to the refusal by some african countries of GM-contaminated food aid, Lloyd-Evans says, 'their eco-imperialism is the closest that we in the Western world are now getting to supporting genocide in the third world'.

Prior to working with Lloyd-Evans, Barfoot had a 12 year stint (1985-1995) with the Agricultural Genetics Company, which eventually led onto Axis Genetics. The aim was to produce pharmaceuticals from GM plants and insect resistant GM plants but both projects floundered as a result of the anti-GM backlash of the late 1990s. Axis Genetics was at the centre of that storm as its products included the GM potatoes researched by Dr Arpad Pusztai and colleagues. Pusztai's research showed that Axis's GM potatoes had damaging effects on rats fed on them.

Axis was co-founded by Paul Rodgers. As well as working for Rodgers' company, Barfoot produced a report on GM for another company co-founded by Rodgers - Pestax Ltd. Pestax, like Axis, failed amidst the public backlash against GM. Paul Rodgers' partner, Dr Geraldine Rodgers, has made public statements every bit as extreme and unsubstantiated as those of Lloyd-Evans. Rodgers warns, "Eating organically grown food puts consumers at risk of the following diseases: Food poisoning from: Salmonella, E.coli 0157 and Cryptosporidiosis, mycotoxin poisoning, liver cancer and other cancers (e.g oesophageal) and probably new variant CJD... While everyone's peering at GM foods down an electron microscope we could be in for the much heralded epidemics of cancer courtesy of the organic farming lobby." (Eating Organically Grown Food Puts Consumers at Risk of Diseases)

It must raise questions about the extent to which PG Economics can be styled 'independent and objective consultants' when it comes to issues like the co-existence of GM crops with organic agriculture given that:

• the clients for its co-existence reports are almost invariably the biotechnology industry or its close associates
• much of Peter Barfoot's career has been spent in businesses dependent on the succes of the biotechnology industry, as well as in an entrepreneurial culture marked by extreme antipathy towards both organic farming and those who raise concerns about GM crops.

Brookes also displays a passionate commitment to GM crops. According to a press report, "A presentation by Graham Brookes, director of the England-based PG Economics Limited, showed hard evidence of the overwhelmingly positive economic and environmental impacts of the crops. Mind you, this is a man whose company gets a paycheck from such pro-GM trade associations as CropLife International and Green Biotech Europe, and who summed up his view of the Indian environmental activist Vandana Shiva with the couplet 'bloody idiot.'"

It's sometimes claimed that some of PG Economics work has been "peer-reviewed". This refers to publication in the Journal of Agrobiotechnology Management & Economics - otherwise known as AgBioForum, which has such enthusiastic GM proponents as C. S. Prakash on its editorial board. AgBioForum is funded by the Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance whose purpose is "to fund biotechnology research... directed at expanding the volume of profitable businesses in the US food and agricultural sector" (Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance).

PG Economics used to rebut report showing higher pesticide use with GM crops

In 2009 a report was released by the Organic Center in the US, entitled, 'Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years', by Dr Charles Benbrook. The report utilized official, US Department of Agriculture pesticide use data to estimate the differences in the average pounds of pesticides applied on GM crop acres, compared to acres planted to conventional, non-GM varieties.

The report’s main findings were that compared to pesticide use in the absence of GM crops, farmers had applied 318 million more pounds of pesticides over the past 13 years as a result of planting GM seeds. This difference represents an average increase of about 0.25 pound for each acre planted to a GM trait.

The report also found that GM crops are pushing pesticide use upward at a rapidly accelerating pace. In 2008, GM crop acres required over 26% more pounds of pesticides per acre than acres planted to conventional varieties. The report projected that this trend will continue as a result of the rapid spread of glyphosate-resistant weeds.

The report stirred a lot of interest and some attempted rebuttals. All of the latter - from the Biotechnology Industry Organization down, drew heavily on the findings of PG Economics Ltd.

For instance, an article published by the pro-GM lobby group Truth About Trade and Technology states, "It's possible to point to statistics that say the exact opposite [to the Benbrook study]. PG Economics Ltd., a well-regarded English consulting firm, recently issued its own findings and said that the use of pesticides on global biotech acreage has dropped almost 800 million pounds--or nearly 9 percent--during the same period."

Curiously, although the Truth About Trade article brands Benbook's study "activist-sponsored", it fails to mention that PG Economics work in this area is almost invariably funded by the biotechnology industry. It also fails to mention, possibly because, like other critics, the author failed to read the actual study, that Benbrook includes a review of PG Economics' work within his study.

What's apparent from Benbrook's review is the extreme lengths to which the PG Economics' analysts have had to go to come up with their conclusions. This includes such "creative – and highly questionable – methodological strategies" as disavowing their own "data-driven estimates".

Incidentally, Brookes' co-director at PG Economics, Peter Barfoot, heads an organisation, BioPortfolio Ltd., which claims to be

a leading provider of business information products and solutions to the biotechnology sector. The company serves millions of clients across pharmaceutical, life science and biotechnology markets with information to help generate competitive advantage.