THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 201, October 26, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
BIOTECH DEATHS MAY ALREADY TOTAL MILLIONS
By Dennis T. Avery & Alex A. Avery
THE GLOBAL CONFLICT OVER MODERN, HIGH-YIELD AGRICULTURE BASED ON ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY: POLITICAL
ENVIRONMENTALISM & THE LUDDITE POLITICAL LEFT VERSUS BIOTECHNOLOGY & ITS USE IN FOOD PRODUCTION --
RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST ORGANIZATIONS & THEIR ACTIVIST OPPOSITION & RESISTANCE TO GENETICALLY
MODIFIED CROPS -- THE ENDEAVOR OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS TO ROLL BACK MODERN CIVILIZATION & ITS
LONG LIFE SPANS -- THE IMPACT UPON PUBLIC POLICY --THE RESULTING DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF STARVING VICTIMS
FULL STORY:
The global conflict over high-yield farming became even uglier last week when armed activists “for the landless” invaded
a Brazilian biotech research farm. One activist and a security guard were killed and eight other people injured.
Unfortunately, the clash over modern farming technology has already had victims by the millions. New technologies that
would save millions of lives every year are being held back by activist-scared regulators, using the excuse of “more testing.”
During the severe southern African drought of 2002, eco-activists -- i.e., radical environmentalists -- told local governments
that American food aid was “poison” because it contained genetically modified seeds. In at least one country, Zambia, the
government locked up the U.S. food aid, despite the starvation of thousands in outlying villages. The food aid was later
liberated by a mob that overwhelmed its armed guards.
Golden rice could provide enough Vitamin A to prevent millions of cases of childhood blindness and death from
rice-dominated diets per year, but it is not yet available to farmers, even though it was announced by the journal
Science nearly eight years ago. Its developer, Ingo Potrykus, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, says his
rice can save millions of lives among the poor, with no threat to the environment, no cost to the poor farmers who will raise
it, and no benefit to corporations. Nevertheless, Greenpeace and other eco-groups ardently oppose this and all other
genetically modified seeds. Potrykus says they’d rather have people die than be saved by high-tech seeds.
African countries refused to allow the import of biotech corn seeds that could have helped overcome the parasitic
witchweed, which infests 40 million hectares of African farmland. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
had to spend an extra 10 years conventionally breeding a natural tolerance for the herbicide imazapyr into African corn
farmers’ varieties. The new seeds reliably yield four times as much corn, providing food security for farmers too used to
facing starvation because the witchweed stole their grain.
The Irish government has refused to accept test plantings of a new biotech potato variety resistant to the deadly potato late
blight. This is the same blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s, when more than a million Irish starved and
more than a million more were forced to flee the country. Researchers found resistance to late blight nearly 50 years ago in a
wild relative of the potato, but it had never been successfully bred into a domestic potato. Now, three major universities have
each bred blight-resistant tubers — and the country which suffered the potato famine won’t allow them to be grown. Nor will
such African countries as Burundi, countries which are increasingly dependent on potatoes. An outbreak of a more virulent
late blight virus continues unchecked in Britain.
How many people have to die before this travesty of Luddite worship runs its course?
How many helpless children will have to go blind before the endless testing of golden rice allows it to be distributed to the
families who so critically need it?
When will the world realize that Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, for all their preaching about the rain forests, are
trying to roll back modern civilization and its long life spans with thickets of overpriced solar panels and windmills? They
willingly fail to see that, without the high yields from the Green Revolution and biotechnology, hungry people will quickly
clear the world’s remaining forests for low-yield crops.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
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).
Alex A. Avery is the Director of Research at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues.
Readers may write Dennis and Alex Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email:
cgfi@rica.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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