Sir, - I note from your issue of September 23rd that UCC's Famine Centre supports the various other groups who claim that Monsanto's genetically modified crops would do more harm than good in the fight against famine. I doubt if this view has much support among UCC scientists. Certainly the people I have spoken to in the food science faculty would not support that line of thinking.
As a professor of agriculture, a former MEP, a former member of Gorta, and a former member of council of the National Agriculture Research Institute I would like to make the following points:
1. The world population has doubled to just over 6 billion in the past 40 years. In that same period the percentage that is undernourished dropped from 38 to 13 per cent (UN figures). This was achieved primarily by using new and better cereal varieties produced by the Nobel Prize-winner Prof Norman Bourlaug, in conjunction with better fertilisation, new weedicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc.
2. Present population trends would indicate that world population will double again over the next 50 to 60 years and most of this increase is occurring in the poorer areas such as Africa, Asia and parts of Central and South America.
While we could further increase output of food using existing technology, it would be too much to expect that we could double output again in the absence of new technology, at least not without serious damage to the environment.
3. The argument that the wealthy world could feed the poorer nations is flawed. In the words of President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, "food aid simply fertilises famine." In other words, undermining local producers simply worsens the situation. The philosophy must be one of "giving a fishing rod, rather than a fish". What they need from the developed wealthy world is appropriate technology for their situation.
That is a view I have held since my days in Gorta, many years ago. I believe that in the developed world we have a moral obligation to develop the technology to enable them to help themselves. Failure to do so would be wilful neglect. To wilfully stop or obstruct such developments, for reasons that are not valid on health, safety, environmental, or ethical grounds, would, I believe, be a crime against future generations.
4. The argument that Monsanto is only in it for profit and hence its research cannot be good for consumers is equally flawed. A company which is not in business to make a profit will not survive in business. As I look around me I can see that in the home, at work, at play, in hospitals, etc. the consumer uses and benefits from the research of private companies that developed, patented and produced products to make profits. Without these products we would be living and suffering like the poor of Africa, Asia and South America.
5. It is the function of national regulatory authorities to establish whether new products meet the criteria of safety, efficacy and purity before they are approved for use. It is the function of governments to ensure that consumers have choice and that they are not impoverished by monopolies.
Consumer safety can best be assured by a regulatory authority which is an autonomous scientific body, such as the FDA in the US, whose decisions cannot be overruled by politicians.
Science and technology can provide solutions for the alleviation of famine but governments must provide the environment (social and economic) to allow the solutions to be effective. - Yours, etc., Prof Tom Raftery
Agriculture Department,
University College Cork.