HomeNewsEditorials There`s No Going Back - the Biotech Genie is out of the Bottle!
There`s No Going Back - the Biotech Genie is out of the Bottle!
Posted by Dean Kleckner
The biotech genie is out of the bottle--and there’s no way anybody’s going to shove it back in.
Farmers around the world are choosing to plant genetically modified crops. The number of acres devoted to gene-altered plants continues to skyrocket. Let me make a prediction - This acreage won’t ever decline. Instead, it will grow and grow, like a corn stalk in July.
In 2002, for the first time ever, half of humanity lived in a country that had approved the use of GM crops in at least some form. Even this startling statistic underplays what’s really happening. That’s because many farmers who aren’t supposed to plant biotech crops are doing it anyway. Brazilian planters are flocking to genetically modified soybeans because they appreciate the incredible benefits of increased yields and reduced pesticide needs. Yet they still don’t have their government’s final seal of approval.
Brazil’s farmers aren’t the only ones behaving this way. Paraguay’s Association of Seed Producers recently indicated that about 80 percent of that country’s soybean crop is biotech, even though these plants aren’t permitted. Romania is in a similar situation.
Laws and regulations should reflect the way we live our lives. The fact is - farmers everywhere want access to the tools of biotechnology. Gene-altered crops are completely safe, as every scientific study of them has shown--and so there’s no rational reason why a government anywhere would deny them to its growers.
There are, of course, political reasons for this--namely, the European Union’s protectionist desire to keep certain products away from its farmers and the markets. What’s even worse, the EU has adopted bullying tactics against developing countries to make them fall in line.
But let me repeat - There’s no going back on biotech. It helps farmers and consumers. There’s no health hazard at all, despite the panicky proclamations of modern-day Luddites. Governments may delay biotech’s adoption, but they can’t deny its ultimate acceptance--certainly not over the long term.
I was in attendance at the just concluded BIO 2003 meeting in Washington, DC. About 20,000 people from all over the world were there – 1,000 or more exhibitors in the trade show – all talking about biotechnology and the great future it has in medicine, pharmaceuticals, industrial use and agriculture.
In May and early June, my attendance at another pair of conferences offered even more to reaffirm my belief in this. At a Mexico City forum sponsored by the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council --I’m one of the group’s members--we listened to presentations on global poverty. Some 3 billion of the world’s people live on less than $2 per day, which isn’t enough cash to buy an “Extra Value Meal” at McDonalds.
About 70 percent of these folks are farmers. It seems to me that any anti-poverty program directed at these people would have to include letting them have access to agricultural technologies that are commonly used in the developed world. I was surprised by the virtually unanimous opinion among other people at the conference that biotech is a key to uplift among these poor farmers.
There was a similar buzz at this year’s World Agricultural Forum in St. Louis. Biotech was on everybody’s mind, and it never seemed so clear that the forces arrayed against it are losing. They will continue to lose, and eventually they will be defeated. It’s only a matter of time.
A think tank in Great Britain has made the point rather plainly in a new study. The Nuffield Council on Bio-ethics has come down strongly in favor of gene-altered crops for the impoverished nations, “We do not claim that GM crops will eliminate the need for economic, political, or social change, or that they will feed the world. However, we do believe that GM technology could make a useful contribution, in appropriate circumstances, to improving agriculture and the livelihood of poor farmers in developing countries.”
Little by little, opposition to biotech is crumbling everywhere it’s still found. Pretty soon it won’t be found anywhere, except as the ruined remains of a discredited hysteria.
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The biotech genie is out of the bottle--and there’s no way anybody’s going to shove it back in.
