Bio-Tech is vital and GM foods are complicated

While I understand the SERIOUS complications with Bio-technology, I have distrusted Luddite-tendencies in this regard. Apparently I am not the only person who feels this way. NORMAN E. BORLAUG, who is a Nobel Prize winner and thus FAR more creditable than me, feels the same way. His recent article at Wall Street Journal really gets to the point:

That investment will not continue to motivate new and novel discoveries, like drought-tolerant, insect-resistant or higher-yielding seed varieties that advance even faster. To accomplish this, governments must make their decisions about access to new technologies, such as the development of genetically modified organisms—on the basis of science, and not to further political agendas. Open markets will stimulate continued investment, innovation and new developments from public research institutions, private companies and novel public/private partnerships.

We already can see the ongoing value of these investments simply by acknowledging the double-digit productivity gains made in corn and soybeans in much of the developed world. In the U.S., corn productivity has grown more than 40% and soybeans by nearly 30% from 1987 to 2007, while wheat has lagged behind, increasing by only 19% during the same period. Lack of significant investment in rice and wheat, two of the most important staple crops needed to feed our growing world, is unfortunate and short-sighted. It has kept productivity in these two staple crops at relatively the same levels seen at the end of the 1960s and the close of the Green Revolution, which helped turn Mexico and India from starving net grain importers to exporters.

Here, too, the ground seems to be slowly shifting in the right direction, as recent private investments in wheat and public/private partnerships in maize for Africa re-enter the marketplace. These investments and collaborations are critical in our quest to realize much needed productivity gains in rice and wheat to benefit farmers around the world—and, ultimately, those of us who rely on them to produce our daily food.

Of history, one thing is certain: Civilization as we know it could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply. Likewise, the civilization that our children, grandchildren and future generations come to know will not evolve without accelerating the pace of investment and innovation in agriculture production.

By the way, recent studies show that: Organic food ‘no healthier than conventional

Still, despite that, there still a LOT of apologetics for organic food’s nutrition. Now there may be good defenses for organic food, but nutrition claims are not amongst them. There are all sorts of patent complications with GM food and cross-fertilization problems. I do not deny this, but it is to be worked out on a case by basis, NOT BY REJECTING A WHOLE CATEGORY OF RESEARCH.