At Last, A UN Report That May Help The Third World
July 20, 2001
The UN Points Out The Developed World’s Hypocrisy On Proposed Bans On GM Foods
CHURCHVILLE, Va.–A new UN report could persuade The New York Times and other major media into presenting balanced coverage of biotech crops.
The United Nation’s “Human Development Report 2001″ sharply criticizes First World governments for pandering to affluent young dissidents instead of worrying about the real and urgent needs of the world’s poor.
“The current debate in Europe and the U.S. over genetically modified crops mostly ignores the concerns and needs of the developing world,” says the report, and “tends to be driven by the views of Western consumers, who do not face food shortages or nutritional deficiencies, or work in the fields.”
Opposition in richer countries to genetically modified crops may set back the ability of the poorest nations to feed growing populations, according to a new United Nations survey,” opened the July 8 Times story on the report.
“The world’s richest nations must get over their fear of genetically engineered food if they want to help eradicate poverty in the world’s poorest, a United Nations report says,” the Associated Press reported.
From Reuters: “Genetically modified crops, under attack in the West, may provide an answer to cutting malnutrition in poor nations by developing seeds resistant to drought, a new U.N report says.”
The United Nations says Western media have publicized the threats of new allergies from modified food, instead of its potential to feed the malnourished or save millions of acres of wildlands from being plowed for food production.
The report says 30,000 kids die every day in the Third World from preventable causes because their countries cannot afford existing technologies, let alone research on ways to improve health and food security. Thus First World research investments are vital to the poor.
The new U.N. report agrees with biotech opponents that biotechnology’s potential environmental and health risks need to be carefully addressed, but asserts that biotech crops have unique potential for helping the poor of the Third World.
Mark Malloch Brown, the head of the United Nations’ Development Program, pointed to successful rice research sponsored by the UNDP and the Japanese government.
The new rice varieties will “have 50 percent higher yields, mature 30
to 50 days earlier, are substantially richer in protein; are far more disease and drought tolerant, resist insect pests and can even out-compete weeds. And they will be especially useful because they can be grown without fertilizer or herbicides, which many poor farmers can’t afford anyway. This initiative shows the enormous potential of biotech to improve food security in Africa, Asia and Latin America.”
The U.N. report also points up the First World’s hypocrisy on the pesticide DDT. Europe and North America were able to wipe out malaria, which once ranged as far north as Chicago, using low-cost, continuous DDT sprays and window screens.
After the First World’s safety from malaria was assured, it put enormous pressure on the Third World to abandon DDT despite millions of deaths a year from resurging malaria.
The activists have even tried to prevent DDT use in treating the interior walls of homes, where it is a cheap way to kill mosquitoes and a highly effective mosquito repellant and no threat to wildlife.
Without the aid of new technologies, the United Nations says most of the world has little chance of meeting the optimistic development goals world leaders pledged at last year’s U.N. Millennium Summit.
Worldwide 1.2 billion people still try to survive on less than $1 a day, according to the report. Over one-third of the world population is not on track to cut poverty in half by the 2015 target.
Meanwhile, the worst sin activists have pinned on biotech crops is the potential for new food allergens. To date, no such allergens have been found, and both researchers and regulators are fully alert to that danger.
The activists claim private corporations will patent biotech crops, freezing out low-income farmers and countries. The United Nations says there’s an easy solution: more public funding for biotech crop research.
Washington Post editorial writer Sebastian Mallaby calls opposition to biotech farming “murderous nonsense.” He writes, “Over the next two decades world population is projected to grow by between 2 billion and 2.5 billion. This increase, together with rising incomes, means that crops will have to grow by about one-third…We could do that by chopping down forests and planting marginal lands, which would be environmentally awful. Or we could do it by boosting yields with new technology.”
Yes!
DENNIS T. AVERY is based in Churchville, Va., and is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis. His views are not necessarily those of BridgeNews, whose ventures include the Internet site www.bridge.com.
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Dennis T. Avery is based in Churchville, Va., and is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis.
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