>Knight Ridder/Tribune
>July 25, 2000, Tuesday
>SECTION: COMMENTARY
>
>Biotechnology not the answer to global hunger
>
>By Deborah Toler
>
>Proponents of biotechnology are on the offensive. They say it can 
>alleviate hunger.  But don't be fooled. Biotechnology could worsen the 
>situation.
>
>The solution to global hunger is political, not technological. The Royal 
>Society of London, the Third World Academy of Science and the national 
>academies of science from the United States, Brazil, China, India and 
>Mexico all claimed in a recent "white paper" that bioengineered food is 
>necessary to feed the world's poor in the future without destroying the 
>environment.
>
>But the call for widespread adoption of biotechnology is based on the 
>longstanding myth that global hunger is caused by too many people for 
>existing food supplies.
>
>Instead of alleviating global hunger, this proposal promises to worsen it by
>strengthening the control of private global corporations over food 
>supplies and food-production technologies.
>
>Corporate control of the food industry contributes to global hunger by 
>exacerbating rural inequalities. The high cost corporations charge for 
>agricultural technologies and the low prices farmers receive for their 
>crops makes farming huge parcels of land _commercial and factory farming _ 
>almost the only way to earn enough to cover the costs of farming.
>
>It also results in commercial farmers trying to lower the cost of 
>production by replacing farm workers with mechanization, increasing the 
>poverty and the hunger of agricultural workers and their families.
>
>The environmental and health effects of crops created by biotechnology 
>remain largely unknown. In a dangerous portent, recent studies have 
>suggested that some genetically engineered crops may kill monarch 
>butterflies. The biggest fear is that biotech crops producing their own 
>pesticides might make insects more pesticide-resistant, thus
>creating a vicious cycle.
>
>Inadequate food supplies are not the cause of global hunger. The world 
>today produces enough grain alone to provide 3,500 calories per day for 
>every human being on the planet, according to "World Hunger: 12 Myths" 
>(Grove Press, 1998). Fully 78 percent of all malnourished children under 
>the age of 5 in the Third World live in countries with food surpluses. 
>Many areas of the world popularly identified with hunger _ India, 
>Bangladesh and much of sub-Saharan Africa, for example _ export food.
>
>Hunger is an economic and political problem. Those who go hungry are those 
>who either lack enough money to purchase sufficient quantities of food or 
>who lack access to sufficient land to grow enough food. This includes the 
>United States: There are 36 million hungry Americans, according to the 
>U.S. Department of Agriculture. The fact
>that three-fourths of the world's 820 million hungry people live in Asia, 
>Africa and Latin America is largely a reflection of the unequal 
>distribution of economic and political power of those regions vis-a-vis 
>the United States and Europe.
>
>Instead of focusing on biotechnology, the West and international agencies 
>such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should alter 
>their policies.
>
>Most importantly, there should be a cancellation of Third World debt, 
>which forces countries to cut back on services for their people and 
>subsidies for their poor.
>
>Urban hunger around the world has remained a serious problem in recent 
>years, as World Bank and IMF programs and foreign debt have forced the 
>removal of government subsidies on food. Food prices have skyrocketed due 
>to these policies. A number of countries, such as Zambia, Zimbabwe and 
>Indonesia, have even witnessed food riots as a result.
>
>Rural hunger tends to be the worst in those countries with the most 
>inequitable distribution of land. A number of processes are contributing 
>to this. In order to earn foreign exchange to repay international debts, 
>developing countries are often being forced, under World Bank and IMF 
>tutelage, to turn their most productive land over to export crops like 
>flowers and designer vegetables, leaving ecologically fragile land for
>staple food crops.
>
>Free-trade policies promoted by the West and by the World Bank and IMF are 
>allowing the United States and other rich countries to flood Third World 
>markets with our food surpluses. In the process, the livelihoods of poor 
>Third World farmers and agricultural workers are being destroyed.
>
>There are alternatives to biotechnology. Farmers have always known how to 
>grow food. Given adequate amounts of arable land, the poor rural 
>majorities in most developing countries can produce more than enough to 
>food to feed their families and even enough surplus to sell on local 
>markets without having to resort to biotechnology.
>
>The solution to ending world hunger does not lie in the wider distribution 
>of still another set of corporate-controlled food production technologies. 
>It lies in the far more difficult political problem of redistributing 
>resources from rich regions to poor ones and from the rich to the poor 
>within each country.
>
>ABOUT THE WRITER
>
>Deborah Toler is a policy analyst at the Institute for Public Accuracy in 
>Washington. She is currently completing a book on the political economy of 
>race and hunger in Africa. She can be reached at 
>pmproj(AT)progressive.org, or by writing to Progressive Media
>Project, 409 East Main St., Madison, Wis. 53703.