THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 121, May 27, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
GREENPEACE & OTHER RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS
PERPETUATE POVERTY & MALNUTRITION:
ANTI-BIOTECH ACTIVISTS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF
HISTORY, SCIENCE, MORALITY, & HUMANITY
By Paul K. Driessen
RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS & THEIR UNRELENTING ATTACK ON BIOTECHNOLOGY, DETERMINED TO PREVENT THE USE OF
GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SEEDS & FOOD IN POOR, DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: THE ANTI-BIOTECH ACTIVISTS' USE OF
EVERY TRICK IN THE BOOK TO KEEP GE SEEDS OUT OF THE HANDS OF FARMERS & GE FOOD OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF HUNGRY
CHILDREN & PARENTS -- THE BIZARRE CLAIMS ONE GREENPEACE LEADER HAS BEEN LEVELING AGAINST A TECHNOLOGY THAT
COULD INCREASE CROP YIELDS, REDUCE SOIL EROSION, & IMPROVE NUTRITION FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE
FULL STORY:
Greenpeace Co-Founder Patrick Moore has said the environmental movement’s “campaign against biotechnology clearly exposes its
intellectual and moral bankruptcy.” It shows little regard for truth or the harm its ideologies inflict on poor people.
As if to underscore how right Dr. Moore is, Greenpeace activist Farida Akthen recently blasted the Bangladesh Agricultural Ministry for
approving research on one of the most promising of all biotech miracles: Golden Rice. By adding a daffodil gene to ordinary rice,
researchers gave it a golden color and enriched it with beta-carotene, which people can convert to vitamin A. Simply by eating a few
ounces of golden rice a day, malnourished children can ward off a vitamin deficiency that causes half a million kids to go blind every
year and leaves hundreds of millions (including many thousands in Bangladesh) susceptible to disease, intellectual impairment, and
death.
But Ms. Akthen, who also heads up another radical Bangladeshi group known as UBINIG, claims this technological marvel somehow
impairs people’s health.
Genetically engineered (GE) food can infect people “with diseases unknown even to physicians,” she recently misinformed journalists
in Dhaka. “Tomatoes, potatoes, rice, wheat, and barley were engineered in a way that their panthogenesis-related proteins prepare
anti-fungal compounds that create allergies in a consumer’s body,” she continued.
These bizarre claims might have a place in a Stephen King fright novel or Comedy Central skit. But they help prolong the suffering and
death of millions who could be helped by agricultural advances that hold great promise for improving environmental conditions,
agricultural production, and nutrition in Bangladesh and other poor countries.
Biotech crops reduce the need for pesticides, and the time farmers must spend working in their fields. By eliminating the need to
cultivate for weed control, herbicide resistant varieties reduce soil erosion. Because they grow better and resist insects and viruses, GE
seeds dramatically increase yields per hectare. Researchers are working on varieties that tolerate drought better or absorb nutrients
more efficiently and thus need less fertilizer.
Like most Americans, I eat food with biotech ingredients almost every day, and buy biotech corn (maize) whenever I can. It’s better for
the environment and unlikely to be contaminated by dangerous fungal toxins that cause fatal diseases in animals, and cancer, reduced
immunity, and birth defects in humans. In fact, tests in England found that GE cornmeal had almost zero contaminants, whereas organic
cornmeal had fungal contaminants (fumonisin) up to 30 times higher than limits set by the European Union.
That’s because GE corn has built-in proteins that attack pests like corn borers, which chew pathways for these dangerous contaminants.
By eliminating these pests, which often destroy almost entire crops in African countries, biotech varieties greatly increase yields per acre.
Americans, so far, have eaten over 1 trillion servings of foods containing at least one GE ingredient. Over the past 10 years, hundreds of
millions of consumers around the world have eaten foods from these improved crops. Not one has gotten so much as a hiccup from them.
All these crops are rigorously screened for allergies and other risks, and prestigious scientific bodies like the World Health Organization,
the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the U.K. Royal Academy have all concluded that biotech
crops and foods are at least as safe as (and often safer than) those from conventional and organic farms.
Ms. Akther “feels” the capitalist world has a “hidden plan to control the world’s food chain.” This paranoid nonsense is designed only
to scare people away from a technology that could transform their lives for the better. Golden Rice will be distributed free to farmers, who
will retain the right to save and replant seed as long as they sell less than US$10,000 annually. While farmers do have to pay for other GE
seeds, most are happy to do so, because the benefits are so great.
South African farmers who use GE corn have boosted crop production, cut pesticide use up to 75%, tripled profits, and saved 35-49 days
per season working in fields. “With the old maize, I got 100 bags from my 15 hectares” (37 acres), says Richard Sithole. “With Bt maize I
get 1,000 bags.” Elizabeth Ajele shares his excitement: “My old plants would be destroyed by insects, even when I sprayed 12 times a
season, but not the new biotech plants. If someone said we should stop using the new maize, I would cry.”
Ms. Akthen wants Bangladeshi farmers to continue practicing “traditional agriculture.” Also known as subsistence farming, it means
families barely scratch an existence from poor soils, and rarely have enough to sell at local markets, much less to export.
If the world had to rely on organic farming or 1960s agricultural technologies to produce as much food as it actually did in 2000, notes Dr.
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the first Green Revolution, “we would have had to double the amount of land under
cultivation.” Millions of acres of forest and grassland habitats would have been slashed, burned and plowed for subsistence farming – or
millions more people would have starved. As human populations grow, the problem would only worsen.
Instead, thanks to biotechnology, farmers can grow far more from the same acreage, thereby preserving habitats and fostering biodiversity
and nutrition. Bangladeshis and Africans don’t even need modern machinery, or specialized training, to double or triple their yields. They
merely have to plant these better seeds, to produce better lives for their families.
No wonder Dr. Moore says the Greens’ position is “insanity.”
Ms. Akthen, Greenpeace and UBINIG are on the wrong side of science, history, morality and humanity. Keeping GE seeds out of the hands
of farmers – and GE food out of the mouths of hungry children and parents – violates their basic human rights, and perpetuates poverty
and malnutrition.
Anti-biotech activists need to be held to civilized standards of honesty, transparency. and accountability. And the news media need to
demand peer-reviewed proof to support the claims of radical environmentalists and should treat their fraudulent assertions with far more
scepticism.
© 2005 Paul K. Driessen
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death, which can be
obtained at www.Eco-Imperialism.com. Email: pdriessen@cox.net --- Telephone:
(703) 698-6171
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