THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 204, August 18, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PRINCE CHARLES PROMOTES WORLD HUNGER
By Dennis T. Avery & Alex A. Avery
ENVIRONMENTALISM & ELITISM VERSUS BIOTECHNOLOGY: ENVIRONMENTALIST & ELITIST OPPOSITION TO THE USE
OF GENETIC ENGINEERING IN AGRICULTURE -- OPPOSITION TO THE GENETICALLY MODIFIED, HIGH-YIELD FOOD CROPS THAT
ARE A KEY HOPE FOR PRODUCING THE EXTRA FOOD NEEDED BY OUR RICHER, MORE POPULOUS WORLD IN THE DECADES
JUST AHEAD -- THE INADEQUACY OF ORGANIC FARMING -- THE BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION -- HOW
ENVIRONMENTALISTS & ELITISTS WOULD STOP & REVERSE HUMAN PROGRESS MADE DURING & SINCE THE GREEN
REVOLUTION
FULL STORY:
Prince Charles of England has come out again against the genetically modified foods that are a key hope for producing the
extra food needed by our richer, more populous world in the decades just ahead. He must know that, thanks to science,
world grain production tripled during his lifetime, from about 700 million tons per year to nearly 2,100 million tons. This
achievement was certainly not due to his elitist organic farming, which continues to yield about half as much per acre as
conventional farming. For fifty years, we have even bombarded seeds with radioactive isotopes to force useful new seed
mutations!
Dr. Norman Borlaug, winner of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, was honored for breeding the high-yield seeds of the Green
Revolution of the 1960. What if we hadn’t tripled the world’s crop yields with the Green Revolution? Not only would one
billion people have starved, but the fabric of the planet would have been rent by more “hunger wars.” Millions more would
have died in the battles, and in the famines and disease epidemics that always accompany wars.
Charles says biotech crops “haven’t raised crop yields.” Nonsense! For openers, biotechnology’s pest-resistant cotton
seeds have raised yields by one-third on the 35 million cotton acres in China and India. That has freed 15 million acres for
additional food crops in the very countries which are currently adding the most pressure on world food supplies. Biotech
varieties also produce higher corn and soy yields.
In Africa, genetically researched corn produces four times as much corn per acre — and an even bigger gain in food
security — because new varieties are naturally tolerant of an herbicide called imazopyr. When these corn seeds are soaked
in small amounts of the herbicide, the imazopyr suppresses the endemic witchweed, a parasitic weed that invades grain
plants through their roots.
The newest biotech rice, wheat, and rapeseed varieties suddenly need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer to produce a full
yield. This cuts food costs, and means almost no nitrogen left over to leach into nearby streams. Nitrogen-efficient corn is
also on its way.
We might ask the future King of England: “What about the millions of pounds of pesticide that haven’t been sprayed in the
air to protect our crops, because a safe and ubiquitous soil organism called Bacillus thuringiensis, engineered into the plants,
kills crop-eating caterpillars?”
If humans will need twice as much food and feed in 2040, how would we feed ourselves and our increasing number of pets
with low organic yields? The yields of organic fields are limited primarily because of the global shortage of manure. However,
the world would need billions more cattle to get extra manure, and we would have to clear forests to grow their forage. “Green
manure crops” steal land, sunshine, water, and soil nutrients from food and feed crops.
How would the future King tell the cat and dog owners of Britain that, because of his anti-science elitism, pet food sales must
be banned so people could eat?
The best non-science solution I have heard about is from Vijay Prakash, Secretary of Welfare in India’s Bihar state. Prakash
says we should eat rats. Then the rats won’t eat the stored grain, and the people will get more high-quality protein. He is
promoting rat meat in the villages — and talking with hotels about rat meat on their menus. It’s at least more realistic than
expecting humans to become vegetarians.
And we wish Queen Elizabeth a very long and healthy life.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Agriculture, the Economy, & Human Welfare:
Policy Issues Relating to Food Production
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior policy analyst for the United
States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement. He is the co-author, with
atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit,
Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental
Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson Institute, 1995), continues to be popular as a readable overview
of realistic agriculture for the future and for today. Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421.
Email: cgfi@hughes.net
Alex A. Avery is Research and Education Director of the Center for Global Food Issues. His areas of expertise include
agriculture, food production, organic and conventional farming, biotechnology, pesticides, environment, and issues relating
to world hunger and international trade. Alex Avery is the author of The Truth About Organic Foods (Henderson
Communications, 2006) and "Farming to Sustain the Environment," Hudson Briefing Paper Number 190 (Hudson Institute, May,
1996). He has written numerous articles, which have been published in such periodicals as Environmental Health
Perspectives , the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, The Washington Times, National Review
Online, Regulation, USA Today Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Des
Moines Register, and Canada's Western Producer.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity