Greenpeace and the Pretense of Virtue
October 27, 1999
Greenpeace is waging all-out war on genetically modified foods “to protect Mother Nature” and plans to invade Seattle next month to disrupt the World Trade Organization’s trade liberalization efforts. They and other environmental groups contend that biotech food presents too many health and environmental risks. Besides, they say, biotechnology is merely another way for big, multi-national corporations to sell more pesticides and control the global food system.
All technology carries risks. But there are risks in not using biotechnology too, something Greenpeace and company refuse to admit. Consider this: population growth and increasing consumption of meat and dairy products in developing countries, especially Asia, are expected to double global farm product demand during the next 35 years. Agriculture already consumes nearly half of the earth’s land area not covered by ice. Meanwhile, the expansion of low-yield, subsistence agriculture is the biggest driver of wildlands loss in the world today. With biotechnology, humanity can dramatically increase the efficiency and productivity of existing farmland, instead of destroying wildlife habitat to create new farmland.
The claim that biotechnology will benefit only corporate industrial agriculture simply has no basis. Thousands of scientists supported with public and private grants are conducting biotech research that is and will continue to benefit all humanity and wildlife too. The most recent advances from these non-corporate efforts illustrate why Greenpeace ought to rethink its position.
Researchers have now found biotech solutions to two major agricultural problems: salt and aluminum toxicity. Salt and aluminum, which suppress plant growth and severely reduce crop yields, affect millions of acres of the worlds cropland. While not as exciting as saving whales, solving these two problems would conserve more wildlife habitat than all environmental organizations combined.
Mexican researchers noted that naturally-aluminum-tolerant plants secrete citric acid from their roots. The citric acid binds to the aluminum, blocking its absorption by the plants. Citric acid is a natural and non-toxic chemical, readily produced by millions of plant and animal species. Using biotechnology, the researchers inserted a gene for citric acid into papaya and rice, the staple crop for billions of people in tropical countries where aluminum toxicity is most pervasive and tropical wildlife most at risk. The engineered plants tolerate soil aluminum levels ten times higher than non-engineered crops. It’s an unprecedented triumph.
The story with salt tolerance is similar. Researchers at the University of Toronto noted that some naturally-salt-tolerant plants protect themselves by pumping salt into a compartment within their cells where it is stored harmlessly. This is achieved by a protein which most plants naturally possess, although in relatively low levels. Using genetic engineering, the researchers increased the expression of the natural protein, resulting in plants that are able to withstand water almost half as salty as sea water.
It is a strategy that could be used in nearly any major crop, leading to food production from previously unsuitable land, such as coastal deserts in the Middle East. However, the greatest use would be in cropland contaminated by salt from poor irrigation practices. Salt-tolerant crops would not only grow well in contaminated fields, but would help restore them by removing salt when the crop is harvested. Genetically engineered plants could be used in the same manner to remove many other pollutants from contaminated land-something else which should please Greenpeace but apparently does not.
Biotechnology also offers unprecedented advances in human health. Swiss researchers have just developed a super rice, with enhanced nutritional characteristics. Developed in an incredibly short seven years, it is high in iron and beta carotene-nutrients seriously lacking in rice-based diets. In fact, beta carotene deficiency causes serious vision impairment in an estimated 14 million people worldwide each year, 8 million of them children. That could end almost immediately with the wide distribution of this new rice, which is exactly why the Rockefeller Foundation funded the research. The new super rice could be in farmers fields within two years. Greenpeace would apparently prefer that 14 million people go blind each year.
While the debate over genetically-engineered foods rages on, we must remember that there is much more at stake than Monsanto’s corporate earnings. After decades of demanding global population control because they claimed we wouldn’t be able to feed everyone AND protect the planet, the Greens now have the audacity to declare we can’t afford the risks from biotechnology. The biggest danger is that the public will buy into their anti-biotech rhetoric, reject the technology, and ensure the continuation of wildlife habitat destruction and human suffering that could be easily avoided.
Alex Avery is Director of Research and Education at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues in Churchville, Virginia.
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