Getting Beyond Fear of GM Crops

"GM crops are created in laboratories, using highly precise techniques. They have been tested repeatedly, and they are regulated by the EPA, FDA, USDA and other agencies. Americans have collectively eaten over a trillion servings of food containing one or more GM ingredients, without a single case of harm. Indeed, as Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and others have demonstrated, every single claim of risk to people or the environment -- from monarch butterfly deaths to destabilized insect ecology and diminished biodiversity -- has been refuted by scientific studies.

And still Dr. John and his fellow radicals place ultra precaution against minor, distant, theoretical risks to healthy, well-fed Westerners above the very real, immediate, life-threatening risks faced by our Earth's poorest and most malnourished people.

Farmers the world over are increasingly turning to GM technology, planting 200 million acres last year. They don't for a minute believe ag biotech is a magic bullet that will make them rich and solve the world's hunger problems. But they know it dramatically increases crop yields, farm profits and family nutrition -- while reducing pesticide use, crop losses to drought, insects and disease, and the amount of land that will be needed to feed a world population that is expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, before leveling off.

Bt cotton has let Chinese farmers reduce their pesticide use by 50 to 70 percent -- while increasing their yields by 25 to 66 percent, and their incomes by US$300 per hectare (US$120 per acre). Since most of these chemicals were applied via hand spraying, they've also slashed accidental pesticide poisoning. Farmers in other Third World countries have had similar experiences."

From Ethis March 7, 2005 article