http://archives.foodsafety.ksu.edu/agnet/2000/2-2000/ag-02-07-00-02.txt
 
 
GOING BEYOND THE BIOTECHNOLOGY DEBATE
February 2, 2000
Center for International Development at Harvard University (CID)
Dr. Thomas R. DeGregori
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidbiotech/comments/comments63.htm
For over two decades, biotechnology has been a safe, effective means of
creating new pharmaceuticals or mass producing known drugs that were
previously limited in availability. Biotechnologies for accelerating plant
breeding using various techniques of tissue culture were successfully
applied to agricultural needs. Pharmaceutical giants acquired seed companies
transforming themselves into life-science enterprises. It was assumed that
their experience and capability in bioengineering of drugs could carry over
into agriculture. By the 1990s, the biotechnology for inserting a gene for a
specific trait was increasingly being used in agricultural research for
crops like cotton, maize and soybeans. Even though testing for safety and
prior approval were not required for crops from traditional plant breeding,
a testing and approval process was worked out through co-operation between
the private and public sectors. The new seeds were marketed to farmers and
their crops entered the marketplace virtually unnoticed by the public. As
the number of people using or consuming these products mounted into the
hundreds of millions, there were not and subsequently have not been any
adverse human health outcomes, verifiable or otherwise, in their production,
processing, use or consumption. By the mid-1990s, bioengineered crops were
being grown in such diverse places as the Argentina, France, China and India
as well as the United States and Canada. Large acreage for many other
experimental bioengineered crops could be found in these and other
countries. Experimentation and testing for safety was not only taking place
in the field but others in the private, public and non-governmental and
professional sectors were studying and examining the issues involved in
bioengineering from every conceivable perspective including ethics and
religion with bioengineering passing all with flying colors. Research and
development was creating crops that required less use of pesticides. Rice
enhanced with iron and vitamin A was developed to address one of the major
causes of ill health and death among poor women and children. There was
reasonable expectation for continued expansion and introduction of new
crops. The Green Revolution technologies accommodated a doubling of world
population by more than doubling food supply so that per capita food
consumption (in terms of daily caloric intake) increased between 30 and 40%
in developing countries, the real price of basic foodstuffs like rice had
fallen in half and the absolute number of people in absolute poverty and
hunger has continued to decline. This was achieved without significant
increases in land under cultivation allowing other land to be used for
purposes such as wildlife conservation. By the mid 1980s, many of the Green
Revolution gains in yields had begun to level off and the critical need for
and promise of biotechnology was promoted to carry forward the task of
feeding the world's population increasing not only the availability of
calories but the potential for even greater advances in human nutrition.
This potential is now under serious threat. Those who had long attacked the
Green Revolution now focused their opposition on biotechnology. They scored
early with their misinformation by biasing the discussion with such scare
term as frankenfoods and terminator genes. When a study in the UK that was
not peer reviewed was released in a press conference and on television
purported to show the dangers of bioengineered crops, they claimed that
science was on their side. When the leading scientists countered that these
conclusions were unwarranted and that bioengineered foodstuffs were safe,
then we were told that scientists were not to be trusted. In the leading
scientific journals, it is clear that despite various reservations and
concerns about their impact on the environment and on human health, informed
scientific opinion clearly recognizes the importance and potential of GM
foods for helping to feed a growing global population and improve overall
nutrition. This is confirmed by research efforts to narrate the emergence of
the controversy over GM foods and surveys of scientific issues debated in
articles, news reports and letters to the editor in leading journals such as
Nature, The Lancet and Science. In the media and in the public arena, the
opponents of GM foods are clearly winning and are currently driving public
policy in Europe and increasingly around the globe. The poorer peoples of
the third world who are most in need of advance in sustainable food
production and improved nutrition are the real losers in the conflict. The
"precautionary principle" ignores the greatest risk. According to Florence
Wambugu, the "biggest risk in Africa is doing nothing...anything that
doesn't help feed our children is unethical." This viewpoint is based on the
author's report entitled Genetically-modified Nonsense published by the UK
Institute of Economic Affairs. It is available at
http://www.iea.org.uk/env/gmo.htm