From: matus [matus@snet.net]
Sent: Saturday, January 05, 2002 12:17 PM
To: matus@snet.net
Subject: MFD List - Genetic Engineering Could Solve World Hunger

(This is an article that was published in The Day relating the potential
benefits that Genetic Engineering and Genetically Modified Organisms can
have on the world.  A good all around description of the possible
benefits. - Mike)

Genetic Engineering Could Solve World Hunger

from -
http://www.theday.com/news/print-friend.asp?NewsUID=05577865-277E-478D-9CD5-
58F0DE088A34

Published on 12/31/2001

By Dennis T. Avery

I confidently predict that the world's intense debate about genetic
engineering will continue in 2002. Here are my top 12 predictions on
biotech:

1. Genetic engineering will be praised in the new year for providing a
potential new cure for cancer. Human trials of a new tumor-killing molecule
are
scheduled to start next spring.

2. However, the same technology that is praised in human medicine will be
ruthlessly attacked, as activists with no science credentials claim
genetically
engineered food crops threaten our health and the environment.

3. Despite the surgeon-general's recent warning about obesity, consumers
will not be offered access to low-fat french fries, made possible through
biotech
potatoes with denser starch granules that absorb less cooking oil. The
potatoes exist, but McDonald's and the processors won't risk a consumer
boycott led
by Greenpeace and other "environmental" groups.

4. Further news on potatoes: Millions of pounds of chemicals will have to be
sprayed in the potato fields next summer to kill crop-destroying aphids and
Colorado potato beetles. The sprays shouldn't be needed since we've also
engineered pest resistance into our biotech potatoes.

5. The people of South Asia will not be protected from hunger by
blight-resistant rice. Bacterial blight has caused many past rice crop
failures and millions of
hunger deaths. Blight-resistant biotech rice has been created, but not
released to farmers.

6. I predict at least one major new biotech food scare will hit the
headlines in 2002 although last year's biotech food scare about
bio-engineered Star Link
corn finding its way into taco chips was a bust. Dozens of people claimed
they'd had allergenic reactions to the StarLink chips, but when physicians
checked,
none had antibodies to the StarLink protein in their bodies. Whatever upset
their stomachs wasn't StarLink corn - which is at least 500 times less
allergenic
than peanut butter. All the biotech food scares over the last 15 years have
been busts. But we're easily frightened of the unknown. Of course, many
people
were even frightened when we began to pasteurize milk to protect ourselves
from deadly diseases like tuberculosis.

7. Activists will continue in 2002 to dress up as butterflies - chiefly
because TV producers like butterfly costumes. Never mind that field tests
show Monarch
butterflies are safer in biotech cornfields than in conventional cornfields
that must be protected with pesticide sprays.

8. European countries will continue to oppose biotech foods, while the
European Commission tries to approve new ones. The commission's staff looks
at the
science. European politicians, however, are enslaved by their own myth that
only 'natural' foods produced on small traditional "peasant" farms are good
enough for Europe. Never mind that traditional peasant cows spread TB and
foot-and-mouth disease or that the "natural" copper pesticides used on
Europe's
organic farms are more toxic to people and wildlife than today's synthetic
pesticides.

9. Europeans may concede in 2002 that it's all right for poor, hungry
countries to use biotech crops. But Europe will continue to demand that its
food and feed
imports be biotech-free. Namibian cattle raisers thus won't take the chance
of feeding South Africans biotech corn because it might block beef exports
to
Europe that earn scarce foreign exchange.

10. Thai rice farmers will continue to let their kids suffer severe vitamin
A deficiencies and their wives severe iron-deficiency anemia, rather than
plant a rice
that would eliminate both problems. Planting genetically engineered rice
anywhere in the country might threaten vital rice exports to nervous
consumers in
Europe, Japan and South Korea.

11. Kenya may defy Europe in 2002 and start field trials of virus-resistant
biotech sweet potatoes, which promise 30 percent to 50 percent higher yields
for
that important staple food. Researchers have also produced virus resistance
for cassava, the "famine crop" that is vital during Kenya's frequent
droughts. But
virus-proofing the cassava might anger Europe, and Europe is a major source
of aid money.

12. India will finally approve a biotech crop for its huge agriculture in
2002. Last year, severe insect attacks destroyed much of India's cotton
despite
repeated applications of costly chemicals. One big set of cotton fields was
left untouched and thriving. It turned out to be illegally planted
pest-resistant
biotech cotton. The cotton was legal in the United States, China and other
countries, but not yet approved by the creaky Indian bureaucracy. India's
farmers
are now politically overwhelming the activists, demanding the right to buy
cotton seeds that defy insects.

The world will need nearly three times as much farm output by 2050 to
provide high-quality diets for a peak population of 9 billion people - not
to mention
their pets.

We're already farming more than a third of the world's land, most of it with
high-yield seeds, fertilizer and pest protection. How can we save room for
wildlife
if we cannot utilize higher-yielding farm technology? Make a New Year's
resolution to ask a member of your local Greenpeace chapter that question in
2002.

Dennis T. Avery is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute.
Readers may write to him at Hudson Institute/DC, 1015 18th St. NW,
Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20036.

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