THE rush to promote genetic engineering as a solution to world food shortages
is undermining crop research in the developing world, claim leading agricultural
scientists. Governments, the World Bank and other funding bodies are withdrawing
their support for biological pest control and switching to genetic research,
they say.
This summer, Monsanto, the world鈥檚 largest supplier of genetically modified
seeds, appealed to African heads of state to back genetic engineering as a
solution to the world鈥檚 food problems. It also launched an advertising campaign
claiming that biotechnology offered the best hope of achieving sustainable food
production.
But Hans Herren, director of the International Centre of Insect Physiology
and Ecology in Nairobi and a leading expert on fighting crop diseases, told a
meeting at the Overseas Development Institute in London last week that these
claims are diverting essential funds from traditional pest control: 鈥淲e
shouldn鈥檛 be driven by this unproven technology when there are many more
efficient solutions to food problems.鈥�
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Other experts take a similar view. Jules Pretty, director of the Centre for
Environment and Society at the University of Essex, warns: 鈥淏iotechnology is
much more sexy with donors at the moment and other research will get squeezed
辞耻迟.鈥�
Herren accuses agricultural researchers at UN agencies and the World Bank of
joining a commercial bandwagon that is halting potentially more useful crop
research. He is particularly critical of the UN鈥檚 development and agricultural
agencies and the Rockefeller Foundation, one of the world鈥檚 largest private
funders of agricultural research for the developing world. 鈥淗alf of
Rockefeller鈥檚 agricultural money now goes to biotechnology,鈥� says Herren.
Many of the 16 research centres run by the World Bank-backed Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research, to which Herren鈥檚 own institute is
affiliated, have also switched from traditional research. 鈥淲hen I visit
agricultural research institutes, I find the biological control lab half empty
with broken windows, and the taxonomy lab derelict, but the biotechnology lab
will be brand new with all the latest equipment and teeming with staff,鈥� Herren
adds.
Herren鈥檚 views carry weight. A decade ago his work helped to save Africa from
famine caused by a South American mealy bug that was devastating the cassava
crop. It threatened disaster for 200 million Africans, until Herren found a
Paraguayan parasitic wasp that killed the mealy bug by laying eggs inside its
body, and released the wasp across the continent.
Herren claims that if the same problem arose today, he would not get the
money for such research. 鈥淭he transgenics people would say they could insert a
gene resistant to the mealy bug into the plant instead.鈥� He argues that if they
were successful, they would charge for new seeds, which African farmers could
not afford. His solution 鈥渟olved the problem once and for all鈥� and did not cost
farmers a penny鈥攐ne reason why companies are not interested in biological
control. Herren says his centre has lots of proposals for pest control based on
botanical products, 鈥渂ut nobody in the aid community wants to fund them鈥�.
鈥淭here may be occasions when biotechnology is the only way of solving a
problem,鈥� says Pretty. 鈥淏ut there are much simpler solutions to most of the
developing world鈥檚 food problems.鈥� He says scientists who believe biotechnology
would banish hunger are being naive. 鈥淢ost people are hungry because they are
poor, not because they lack technology.鈥�
Monsanto rejects Herren鈥檚 charges. The US-based company says that resistance
to insects and disease will be among the first benefits of its products.