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Authors: Pierre Desrochers
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defenders of âtraditional agricultureâ are usually several generations removed from its practice. The romance of swinging a hoe or a machete is largely lost on people whoâve actually spent some time on the business end of those âtraditionalâ technologies.
One in four Haitians was hungry before the earthquake: local food for local people was and is sentencing Haitians to a life of misery, disease, and all too often death. The position of the groups protesting Monsantoâs donation is that brown people should starve rather than plant seeds touched by the hands of multinationals. Desrochers and Shimizu write not because it matters what the residents of Berkeley or
the Hamptons eat, but because it matters that the residents of Haiti donât eat. It is the worst kind of cultural imperialism for wealthy and well-fed Americans to sentence their neighbors to a life of hunger and machete swinging. Bad ideas can have terrible consequences, and hopefully this book will help to put some of those bad ideas to rest.
Only three countries in Africa allow the use of biotechnology because of the reluctance of international organizations to approve the technology and the fact that the European Union will not buy most genetically modified products. While U.S. yields are increasing at 2% a year and Asian yields have quadrupled over the past 50 years, African yields havenât increased at all. There are many reasons for Africaâs lagging yields, but the refusal of most of the continent to adopt biotechnology explains much of the disparity.
On my farm in Missouri, we use genetically modified seeds that control insects. African farmers have not had the opportunity to plant similar genetically modified varieties, and canât afford insecticides. Consequently, each year African farmers lose a large portion of their crops to insects.
Rice varieties genetically modified to prevent blindness have been tied up in the regulatory equivalent of purgatory for 13 long years. The Swiss biologist who invented the technology is furious, as well he should be. The delay, according to him, has been âresponsible for the death and blindness of thousands of children and young mothers.â 3
African farmers are aware of what is happening to them, and they arenât happy. Matthew Ridley, writing in the Wall Street Journal: âIn Uganda, where people often eat three times their body weight in bananas a year, a GM banana that is resistant to a bacterial wilt disease, which causes $500 million in annual losses and cannot be treated with pesticides, is being tested behind high security fences. The fences are there not to keep out anti-GM protesters, as in the West, but to keep out local farmers keen to grow the new crop.â 4
Itâs clear that something more than a debate about health and science is going on here. The EU recently allowed the planting of a genetically modified potato, and even though this tuber was intended for paper production
and not for human consumption, the Italian Agriculture minister protested, vowing to âdefend and safeguard traditional agriculture and citizenâs health.â It is no coincidence that the mention of âtraditional agricultureâ was given precedence in the Ministerâs statement. The reluctance of much of the world to adopt biotechnology is not about the safety of the seed, but rather the preservation of âtraditional agricultureâ and what the Haitian protesters called food sovereignty. In large parts of the world, local trumps science, and people suffer as a result.
The Obama administration has had much to say about local food. The First Lady has planted a garden, organic, of course, and the Department of Agriculture is spending 50 million or so on a program called Know Your Farmer. The effort is likely to disappoint: in fact, a suburban housewife determined to know this corn farmer is likely to be mortified by my looks, the way I smell, and
One in four Haitians was hungry before the earthquake: local food for local people was and is sentencing Haitians to a life of misery, disease, and all too often death. The position of the groups protesting Monsantoâs donation is that brown people should starve rather than plant seeds touched by the hands of multinationals. Desrochers and Shimizu write not because it matters what the residents of Berkeley or
the Hamptons eat, but because it matters that the residents of Haiti donât eat. It is the worst kind of cultural imperialism for wealthy and well-fed Americans to sentence their neighbors to a life of hunger and machete swinging. Bad ideas can have terrible consequences, and hopefully this book will help to put some of those bad ideas to rest.
Only three countries in Africa allow the use of biotechnology because of the reluctance of international organizations to approve the technology and the fact that the European Union will not buy most genetically modified products. While U.S. yields are increasing at 2% a year and Asian yields have quadrupled over the past 50 years, African yields havenât increased at all. There are many reasons for Africaâs lagging yields, but the refusal of most of the continent to adopt biotechnology explains much of the disparity.
On my farm in Missouri, we use genetically modified seeds that control insects. African farmers have not had the opportunity to plant similar genetically modified varieties, and canât afford insecticides. Consequently, each year African farmers lose a large portion of their crops to insects.
Rice varieties genetically modified to prevent blindness have been tied up in the regulatory equivalent of purgatory for 13 long years. The Swiss biologist who invented the technology is furious, as well he should be. The delay, according to him, has been âresponsible for the death and blindness of thousands of children and young mothers.â 3
African farmers are aware of what is happening to them, and they arenât happy. Matthew Ridley, writing in the Wall Street Journal: âIn Uganda, where people often eat three times their body weight in bananas a year, a GM banana that is resistant to a bacterial wilt disease, which causes $500 million in annual losses and cannot be treated with pesticides, is being tested behind high security fences. The fences are there not to keep out anti-GM protesters, as in the West, but to keep out local farmers keen to grow the new crop.â 4
Itâs clear that something more than a debate about health and science is going on here. The EU recently allowed the planting of a genetically modified potato, and even though this tuber was intended for paper production
and not for human consumption, the Italian Agriculture minister protested, vowing to âdefend and safeguard traditional agriculture and citizenâs health.â It is no coincidence that the mention of âtraditional agricultureâ was given precedence in the Ministerâs statement. The reluctance of much of the world to adopt biotechnology is not about the safety of the seed, but rather the preservation of âtraditional agricultureâ and what the Haitian protesters called food sovereignty. In large parts of the world, local trumps science, and people suffer as a result.
The Obama administration has had much to say about local food. The First Lady has planted a garden, organic, of course, and the Department of Agriculture is spending 50 million or so on a program called Know Your Farmer. The effort is likely to disappoint: in fact, a suburban housewife determined to know this corn farmer is likely to be mortified by my looks, the way I smell, and
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