Global Trend

Nutrition Deferred

Today, much of the world remains malnourished, despite the increasing availability of technological solutions to the problem. What we’ve done is defer nutrition for hungry people because of widespread fear of genetically modified foods.

In the case of growing children, “nutrition deferred” is truly “a future denied,” because their potential to develop physically and mentally to their full potential is not possible without proper nutrition.

Not only does this have long-term implications for moving the “consumption boom” down the pyramid, but it impacts the shorter-term business prospects for leading agri-business firms, whose growth prospects could depend heavily on genetically modified foods being widely adopted.

Despite the urgent need for a solution to world hunger, companies have bowed to the pressure of environmental groups that oppose GM foods. For example, Monsanto created the first commercially available genetically engineered wheat. Yet, in 2004, it stopped producing the crop.

According to a recent report in The Economist,1 this marked the first major retreat in what may become known as the “biotechnology wars,” pitting the science of genomics and progress against superstition and unfounded fears. At the heart of this controversy is the idea that somehow genetic modifications are going to poison the food chain.

To date, there is absolutely no scientific evidence that genetically modified foods ? known as GM foods ? have any effect at all on humans and animals. But there is plenty of evidence that genetic modification can improve the quality of crops by shortening growing time, making them more resistant to disease and parasites, allowing farmers to use less pesticide, and improving their nutritional content and even their taste.

As reported this summer in The Christian Science Monitor,2 scientists recently decoded the genome for rice. Using this knowledge, they planned to enhance the level of trace minerals and vitamins in rice in order to fight malnutrition in the Third World. But the project has failed to get off the ground because of environmental fears. In fact, the nations that might benefit most from the rice have imposed stiff rules that prevent it from being imported.

Fear is stopping not only GM foods but industrial crops as well. For example, paper companies use starch, much of which comes from potatoes. The world’s major producer of potato starch, AVEBE, a Dutch co-operative, developed an improved GM potato for use in producing this industrial starch, but the European Union prevented it from being sold.

Despite this resistance, farmers in the U.S. have planted more than 167 million acres of GM crops. That’s because Americans are far less wary of them than European consumers. This provides an opportunity to establish the United States as the premier GM crop developer for everything from food to industrial uses to medicine.

For example, GM plants can produce human albumin, hemoglobin for blood transfusions, interferon, and vaccines for hepatitis-B, anthrax, cholera and dysentery ? a major killer of children in Third World countries.

Genetic modification can also produce plants that clean up contaminated soil. The first widespread use of genetically engineered crops is therefore likely to come in the chemical industry for manufacturing plastics, fibers, and fuels to replace petroleum.

Metabolix, a research company in Massachusetts, has developed a bacteria that grows finished biodegradable plastics. Much of the ethanol for automobiles in Brazil is made, if not with genetically modified crops, then with enzymes engineered to make the fuel more efficiently. Other GM enzymes are used in making cheese, soap, and other products. DuPont has patented a new fiber, called Sorona, that uses genes to turn sugar into fabric.

In the meantime, the debate in Europe and elsewhere remains fueled more by emotion than by reason. GM opponents mistakenly connect such naturally occurring events as Mad Cow disease with genetically engineered crops, and they produce “FrankenFood” scenarios. But, in reality, there is no logical connection.

The people who object to GM foods might be horrified to realize that the red grapefruit they eat was developed by exposing normal grapefruit seeds to radiation at Brookhaven National Laboratory ? in the 1920s. Our so-called “natural” wheat was developed the same way. The truth is, we haven’t had many truly natural foods ? unchanged by human interference ? for at least 1,000 years.

With little effort on the part of industry or government to educate the public, the myths about GM foods have yet to be replaced with real information. The public sentiment runs so high that even test plots of new plants in Europe are destroyed by people who fear them. In response, companies like Syngenta are reducing or halting their research in Europe, one of the birth places of agricultural biotechnology. This means that Europe is ironically losing out on the chance to develop the next generation of scientific agriculture.

In light of this trend, we offer the five following forecasts for your consideration:

First, resistance to genetically modified foods will continue to be fierce in much of the world through at least 2015, while the U.S. and China battle for the forefront. Europe will remain stalled.

Second, the United States will have to act fast to remain in the forefront. China appears to be aiming for world domination of GM products. More than half its cotton is already genetically modified. China has planted 10 GM rice fields, and imports more modified soybeans than any other country. More broadly, it has committed 20,000 researchers at 200 biotech labs there. As China stakes out this lucrative turf, expect to see American companies using their potent lobbying power to get a home-field advantage in the U.S.

Third, between 2015 and 2025, it will become apparent that the only way to meet the nutritional needs of the world is to farm more efficiently. The only way to do that will be with GM crops. The initial efforts will be seen in developing nations, where GM crops will dramatically reduce malnutrition in hard-hit regions. But once GM foods have been proven there, they will spread rapidly.

Fourth, GM foods will gain momentum by demonstrating health improvements in developing nations. In places where children eat only rice, many suffer vitamin A deficiency, go blind, and die. A Swiss scientist developed a strain of GM rice that contains vitamin A ? and the potential to save a million children a year. Humanitarian opportunities like that will become increasingly difficult to overlook.

Fifth, in the years beyond 2025, a new generation of consumers will grow up that has not been sensitized to fear GM foods ? and that’s when Europe will fully adopt this technology. There will always be food fads, but refusing to eat genetically engineered foods will become about as uncommon ? and inconvenient ? as refusing to drink unpasteurized milk today. By mid-century, genetically engineered agriculture will not only supply the world’s foods and many of its industrial and medical needs, but it will help clean up and maintain a healthy environment long into the future.

References List :
1. The Economist, October 9, 2004, “The Men in White Coats Are Winning, Slowly.” ⓒ Copyright 2004 by The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. 2. The Christian Science Monitor, August 17, 2005, “A Food Revolution Beckons, but Few Show Up,” by Peter N. Spotts. ⓒ Copyright 2005 by The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.