Subject: RE: Avery and Pope
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 16:08:46 -0500
Organization: The Philanthropy Roundtable
Thanks for your interest in Philanthropy magazine. Mr. Avery's and Mr.
Eberstadt's articles may be located at the following URLs. Mr. Pope's
(unpublished) letter is appended.
James F.X. O'Gara (202) 822-8333
Director of Publications (202) 822-8325 (fax)
The Philanthropy Roundtable
AVERY:
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/1.9/avery.html
EBERSTADT:
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/1.9/ebers.html
POPE:
Dear editors:
Before I take issue with one of the articles in your November/December
issue, let me first express agreement with another. While the data I have
seen on the relative productivity per acre of low input agriculture does
not support Dennis Avery's argument that it will require more acreage to
feed the world than using chemically intensive agriculture, I strongly
endorse his call for a renewed commitment to governmental and philanthropic
funding of agricultural research including research into conventionally
bred or bio-engineered new varieties of crops.
In addition to the arguments that Avery offers for why we should not fall
back into reliance on private agribusiness to do all of our research, there
is another and fundamental reason. Approximately one billion poor farmers
produce 25% of the world's food, and also produce livelihoods for
themselves and their families. These farmers do not represent an
attractive commercial market for agricultural researchers in private
industry. New varieties suitable for their needs, even if productive,
would not be as profitable as equally useful new varieties meeting the
needs of large or commercial growers or those with higher incomes.
Worse, the exigencies of the marketplace are leading many bioengineering
companies down a road that will make life dramatically worse for these poor
farmers and for the global environment. The inflammatory conflict over
Monsanto's "terminator" technology is only the latest example. The
"terminator" gene, jointly developed by USDA and a research firm
subsequently acquired by Monsanto, enables seed companies to produce
high-yielding varieties of crops such as rice and wheat which will be
sterile. This will solve the "problem" for seed companies that farmers
currently save their seeds for such crops, because they cannot afford to
buy fresh seed every year.
What is a "problem" for seed companies is, of course, an important element
of economic security for poor farmers around the world. But from the
viewpoint of commercial bioengineers, there is relatively little incentive
to develop a fantastic new variety of wheat or rice since, unlike
hybridized food crops like corn, the market is relatively small. This is
particularly true of a variety that may require low levels of chemical
inputs and produce particular benefits when used in labor intensive
agriculture with poor soils or weather-precisely where poor farmers are
most in need.
And from an environmental perspective, the terminator gene is a serious
threat, since it will, inevitably, migrate at least to close relatives of
the engineered crop, eliminating the natural fertility of wild strains and
related endemic species and accelerating the alarming trend of global loss
of germ plasm. (This same propensity of this gene to cross-breed, of
course, means that even farmers who never buy the terminator seed may lose
the fertility of some or all of their saved seed, because it will have been
cross pollinated with the gene.)
Only philanthropic or public sector research institutions can be expected
to pursue promising breeding strategies without regard to such commercial
exigencies, and a massive increase in such research is, as Avery argues,
absolutely critical-only then can the promise of high-tech breeding be
combined with the social and environmental needs of the world.
But ironically, Avery simultaneously provides a compelling rebuttal to
another article in the same issue of PHILANTHROPY, our cover story on
population. Nicholas Eberstadt argues that there is insufficient evidence
that population growth creates major problems to justify the investment in
population programs by American foundations and philanthropists. Let me
quote Dennis Avery in rebuttal:
"If the world's future food production were left to slash-and-burn farming,
we could expect to lose half of the remaining tropical forests in the next
several decades. That would be an irreparable loss for the world's
biodiversity...."
"To save the wildlands with dietary changes, we might need 50% of the
world's population to become vegans .... there is not likelihood of such a
global dietary shift occurring voluntarily. Quite the contrary: Chinese
meat demand has more than doubled over the last seven years as that
country's citizens have begun to experience some level of economic
prosperity. India's milk consumption has more than doubled since 1980."
In spite of the argument earlier in his article that "human population is
rapidly stabilizing", Avery's data shows that human population at present
levels poses a serious threat to biological diversity, and certainly
combined with rising living standards this threat will increase.
We have, unfortunately, passed the point in human history where we can
adopt any single fix for our problems; we will need to combine social
changes such as women's education with family planning to bring down
fertility; publicly accountable and oriented research into better plant
varieties with a reduction of excessive reliance on chemical inputs to
increase food production in an environmentally sustainable way and creative
strategies to change farming practices in ways that will accommodate
biological diversity alongside food and fiber production.
American philanthropy has historically suffered from a tendency to seek a
magic bullet-the tension between Avery and Eberstadt data should remind us
that debunking magic bullets is not, in itself, a magic bullet.
Sincerely yours,
Carl Pope
Executive Director
The Sierra Club
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