-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Teuton <fteuton@total.net>
To: OGL@LSV.UKY.EDU <OGL@LSV.UKY.EDU>
Date: Friday, February 18, 2000 3:59 PM
Subject: Fw: The Voice of Reason in the Global Food Fight
>Posing as the 'Voice of Reason', or, if you like, the more skilled
>propagandist---FYI
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jim McNelly < Date: Friday, February 18, 2000 3:39 PM
>Subject: The Voice of Reason in the Global Food Fight
>
>
>>
>>The following interview in the February 21 Issue
>>of Fortune Magazine was taken from the following
>>www site:
>>http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/2000/02/21/bio3.html
>>Another article about Monsanto is posted
>>at
>>http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/2000/02/21/bio.html
>> Jack Cooper on February 18 at 11:50 am
>>
>>The Voice of Reason in the Global Food Fight
>>
>>Rockefeller Foundation chief Gordon Conway has emerged as the one thought
>>leader neither side can ignore in the high-stakes biofoods war--and the
>>best hope for an outcome all six billion of us can live with.
>>
>>Gordon Conway has emerged as the global food fight's leading centrist. He
>>continues to play industry gadfly, but also has taken anti-GM zealots to
>>task for spouting alarmist hype. Like Monsanto, they can't dismiss him as
a
>>tool of the other side. Conway happens to be a hero of the Green
>>Revolution, the agricultural movement that more than doubled the Third
>>World's crop yields after 1960. He spent more than 30 years in places like
>>Borneo, India, and Thailand helping mastermind ecologically sound farming.
>>Conway spearheaded "sustainable agriculture," a set of practices for
>>controlling pests and boosting yields without heavy reliance on chemicals.
>>Fortune's David Stipp interviewed him at his office in Manhattan to get
his
>>take on where the biofoods debate is headed:
>>
>>Interviewer: David Stipp
>>
>>Last June, Gordon Conway, a scholarly British ecologist, walked into the
>>Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., for a momentous meeting with Monsanto's
>>board. The company had invited him for a private talk about the growing
>>furor surrounding its genetically modified, or GM, crops. It expected to
>>get friendly advice from a biotech supporter--Conway is president of the
>>Rockefeller Foundation, which has funded $100 million of research on
>>bioengineered crops to help farmers in the developing world. Instead,
>>Conway delivered a stinging rebuke.
>>
>>In an eloquent speech, the scientist all but charged Monsanto with
>>hubris--in the rush to market GM cotton, soybeans, and corn, he said, it
>>and other purveyors had given short shrift to legitimate concerns about
>>bioengineered crops and generated a backlash. He urged the company to make
>>major policy changes and to forgo the use of "terminator" technology, GM
>>plants that bear sterile seeds so that farmers are forced to buy new seeds
>>every year. The next day Conway stunned Monsanto by going public with his
>>recommendations. Given Conway's stature and his well-known pro-biotech
>>leanings, the move put more heat on the company than reams of tabloid
>>hysteria about "Frankenfoods."
>>
>>Monsanto responded with a curt release saying that it had had a "frank and
>>productive" talk with Conway--PR-speak for "infuriating confrontation."
But
>>a few weeks later, CEO Robert Shapiro promised in an open letter to Conway
>>not to commercialize terminator technology. Then Shapiro echoed many of
>>Conway's criticisms in a conciliatory speech to attendees at a Greenpeace
>>meeting: "Too often we forgot to listen," he admitted.
>>
>>You've spent much of your career advancing the cause of groups like
>>Greenpeace in the developing world. Yet you sharply disagree with them
>>about bioengineered crops. Why the parting of the ways?
>>
>>We've got 800 million chronically malnourished people in the world, and
>>we'll have about 1.6 billion more by 2020. That's over two billion more
>>mouths to feed if everyone's going to have a decent life. We're going to
>>need two approaches to do this. One is ecologically sound agriculture. The
>>other is biotechnology.
>>
>>Some activists argue that there's enough food in the world, and it's just
a
>>matter of distribution. But that's naive. I don't see any signs that the
>>wealthy of the world are about to distribute their wealth. In general, aid
>>to developing countries is declining rapidly.
>>
>>The increases in crop yields we saw during the Green Revolution are
>>slowing. They're now about half of what we saw at the peak. In some
places,
>>yields are dropping. The banana crop in Uganda and East Africa is
virtually
>>collapsing because of viruses, nematodes, and other pests. Bananas are a
>>staple food in those countries, so it's a desperate problem. We think
>>biotechnology could help solve it, perhaps by inserting pest-resistance
>>genes in bananas.
>>
>>About 100 million children in the developing world suffer from vitamin A
>>deficiency, and each year some two million die as a result. Recently a
>>Swiss researcher with Rockefeller funding introduced genes that produce
>>beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A, in the rice grain. It contains
>>sufficient beta-carotene to meet human vitamin A requirements from rice
>>alone. Conventional plant breeding had been unable to do that.
>>
>>If we're careful, biotech can help get rid of poverty and a great deal of
>>illness in a way that's environmentally friendly.
>>
>>What about activists' assertion that GM seeds sold by companies like
>>Monsanto have little to do with feeding the world--and everything to do
>>with dominating seed markets?
>>
>>I've told the companies they shouldn't claim their biotech products will
>>feed the world. Their interest is in crops that provide a significant
>>return on investment. The only developing nation where they seem to be
>>making money is China, where millions of acres have been planted with Bt
>>cotton [which produces its own insecticide]. From everything we've heard,
>>Bt cotton is doing spectacularly well in China. Yields have gone up, it's
>>reduced the number of pesticide sprayings from about 12 to three per
>>season, and pesticide poisoning is falling.
>>
>>But when you talk about improving maize, rice, millet, sorghum, cassava,
>>and all the other basic crops of small farmers in the developing world,
>>biotech companies aren't very interested. That has to happen with public
>>money. Still, researchers working on these crops are using many
>>technologies developed in the private sector. If the GM controversy caused
>>a real curtailment of private investment in biotech, a lot of the
potential
>>for using it in the developing world would be lost.
>>
>>The concern about big companies capturing seed markets is legitimate. But
I
>>get irritated by critics who claim organic farming can feed the developing
>>world. I had a meeting with President Mugabe [of Zimbabwe] two months ago.
>>He said to me, "The Prince of Wales tells me we can feed Africa with
>>organic food. What do you think?" I said, "Look, to do that, you need
>>organic matter to continually put into the soil. At the moment, your crop
>>yields are far too low to provide much left-over stalk to put back. Your
>>livestock are not very fit and produce poor-quality manure--much of which
>>is burned for fuel. Fifteen years from now you might be able to afford the
>>luxury of organic farming, but only if you first put a large quantity of
>>nitrogen into the soil with inorganic fertilizers out of bags."
>>
>>What are the biggest risks posed by GM crops?
>>
>>The most serious environmental risk is the possibility that implanted
>>genes, such as those for herbicide resistance, will escape from cultivated
>>crops into wild relatives, resulting in the production of super-weeds.
It's
>>not clear that escaped genes would remain in wild relatives and cause
>>adverse ecological effects. Only extensive field tests will give us
answers
>>on this.
>>
>>Another risk is the potential for pests to evolve resistance to Bt [an
>>insecticide produced by a number of GM crops]. There are some well-known
>>counterstrategies, but experience indicates they eventually will fail. So
>>we need to carefully monitor insect pests for resistance and continuously
>>develop alternative control strategies.
>>
>>A third hazard is that crops such as Bt corn will harm beneficial insects.
>>Recently pollen from Bt corn was shown to kill caterpillars of the Monarch
>>butterfly. In the not-too-distant future, this problem will be avoidable
by
>>genetic techniques to prevent the expression of Bt in pollen.
Nevertheless,
>>this case demonstrates the need for more detailed monitoring of the
effects
>>of Bt crops.
>>
>>How about human health risks?
>>
>>Allergies are the most significant one. Transferring genes from one plant
>>to another may introduce new allergens in foodstuffs. Known allergens can
>>be tested for, but there may be surprises.
>>
>>Other fears have less scientific basis. There's no a priori reason to
>>suppose that ingesting pieces of DNA transferred from one plant to another
>>is any more hazardous than ingesting the large amounts of DNA we get every
>>day from numerous sources in normal diets. And the risks of GM foods seem
>>pretty low compared to those posed by aflatoxin [a potent carcinogen] and
>>E. coli [toxic bacteria] sometimes found in normal foods. Are organic
>>peanuts guaranteed to be free of aflatoxin?
>>
>>European consumers, especially in Britain, have eagerly jumped on the
>>anti-GM bandwagon, while so far those in America haven't. Why?
>>
>>One factor is worry in Europe about domination of the food chain by
>>American companies. That partly explains why Monsanto managed to fall into
>>the role of devil incarnate. Of course, this conveniently ignores the fact
>>that some of the chief developers of GM technologies are based in Europe.
>>
>>Another reason is that the U.S. is a very hazardous place. You have
>>hurricanes. You have tornadoes. You have rattlesnakes. You have all kinds
>>of tick-borne fevers. You have 250 million guns. In contrast, the sole
>>hazard in Britain is one very rare poisonous snake. That's it. Period.
It's
>>a well-manicured country. So the American population is used to living
with
>>hazards.
>>
>>Most Americans are more worried about getting shot than the remote chance
>>that some GM ingredient in food is going to affect their health.
>>
>>All this makes GM risks loom larger in Europe. But there are certain
>>paradoxes about that. When it comes to the risks of global warming,
>>Greenpeace says that scientists are absolutely right. Yet when some of the
>>same scientists have called for moderation on the GM issue, Greenpeace has
>>ignored them.
>>
>>The classic example is Sir Robert May, the British government's chief
>>scientist. He strongly argues that we're causing global warming and should
>>do something about it. He also strongly argues that GM has great benefits,
>>and we should stop being hysterical about it.
>>
>>You've chided Monsanto and other GM-seed developers for mistakes that
could
>>set back crop biotech for years. What have they done wrong?
>>
>>In some cases there should have been more testing before products were
>>brought to market. Certainly, with Bt corn the companies should have known
>>a number of adverse effects might arise, such as harm to butterfly
>>caterpillars.
>>
>>The companies' really big mistake, though, was to concentrate on things
>>that had no benefit to the consumer. They started with pest- and
>>herbicide-resistant crops--products with potential risks and no consumer
>>benefits. It's not illogical for consumers to say they don't want them.
>>
>>In retrospect, I think they should have started with something like
>>low-cholesterol eggs from free-range chickens!
>>
>>Perhaps your most controversial stand, from industry's point of view, is
>>that GM-containing foods should be labeled. What's your answer to the
>>argument that labels would provoke undue consumer alarm?
>>
>>If food companies had labeled from the beginning in Europe, they wouldn't
>>have a problem there. What people really object to is being exposed to
>>risks without their choice. This is why I support labeling--not because I
>>think GM foods pose significant health risks, but because it's a
>>freedom-of-information issue.
>>
>>I got a flu shot yesterday--probably too late. Before I got it, I had to
>>read this thing that said at the bottom, "You may have adverse reactions,
>>including death." I thought, "Oh hell." Then I signed it. The point is
that
>>we don't mind taking all sorts of risks if we have a choice. Industry
>>eventually will get dragged, kicking and screaming, into labeling. But by
>>then it will be too late--there will be a lot of unnecessary consumer
fear,
>>and that will be a sad thing.
>>
>>Recently you convinced your board to earmark $3 million to promote a
>>"global dialogue" on GM crops. Do you see much hope for reason to prevail
>>in this messy food fight?
>>
>>There's room for consensus and win-win situations. For instance, Monsanto
>>has a gene that can protect against a potato virus that's common in
Mexico.
>>The company is selling seed potatoes with this gene to commercial growers
>>in Mexico's lowlands. We've helped arrange to have the technology donated
>>to nonprofit breeders, grantees of ours, who are putting the gene into
>>potatoes that small farmers in the uplands grow. In theory, everybody will
>>win--as the small farmers in the hills realize the benefits, they
>>eventually will become more prosperous and become part of the market for
>>the commercial seeds. We're working on several other cases like this; more
>>should be announced soon.
>>
>>In addition, we're instigating fora that will bring together all the
>>stakeholders--government people, consumer groups, scientists,
>>environmentalists, people from developing countries. We're not trying to
>>control anything. But outrageous statements tend to get toned down when
>>people can sit in a room and ask their opponents, "Exactly what do you
>>mean?" There's a whole raft of people who are thoughtful about GM issues
>>whose views need to be heard. Not all environmental groups dismiss biotech
>>out of hand.
>>
>>How do you think the controversy will unfold over the next few years?
>>
>>My guess is that sales of GM seeds will fall off some, and private
>>development of GM crops will slow down. I don't think that will be a bad
>>thing. The companies will concentrate on second-generation products, such
>>as the one I described that would make Bt corn less likely to harm
>>beneficial insects. We'll also see more work on increasing the nutritive
>>value of foods. It will be a classic case of the second generation being
>>safer and better than the first.
>>
>>If the market for GM crops really collapses in the industrialized world,
>>and the technology's development is sharply curtailed, there's one country
>>that will continue to invest heavily in it and potentially emerge as the
>>world leader. That's China. China needs this technology desperately, and
>>it's not going to give it up.
>>
>>Eventually the furor will die down. You have to understand that groups
like
>>Greenpeace are like multinational companies. They have offices all around
>>the world. And they have sales and products. They're in the business of
>>campaigns. The GM issue is their big campaign at the moment. After a while
>>they'll move on to a new one.
>>
>>Meanwhile, nonprofit groups and the developing world will continue to
>>invest in biotech. As part of our focus on Africa, we're planning to fund
>>more research on genes that make crops resistant to drought. We'll also
>>continue to work on combining public and private interests to make sure
the
>>poor farmers of the world benefit from biotech. That's the real prize in
>>all this.
>>
>>Giving up on it would be crazy.
>>
>>end
>>
>>Vol. 141, No. 4
>>February 21, 2000
>>
>>
>>
>
>>
>
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