By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A lack of acceptance of biotechnology in some parts of the world could hamper efforts to feed people in the years to come, a panel of agricultural and policy officials said last week.

The discussion, a global town hall meeting broadcast over the internet, focused on the challenges of feeding the projected 2.5 billion more people who will be living on the planet by 2050.

“What we haven’t done is shown people how different modern biotechnology can make farming. It’s marketing. Once you put a cocoon of fear around something, it’s extremely hard to dispel,” said Nina V. Fedoroff, science and technology adviser to the U.S. secretary of state, and administrator of United States Agency For International Development. “We need to make it easier to get biotech crops out to farmers.”

That fear has made European governments too cautious, said Mark Cantley, the former head of the European Union’s Concertation Unit for Biotechnology in Europe and of the Organization for Economic Development’s Biotechnology Unit.

“The manifestation of this fear is the overemphasis on precaution,” he explained. “In Europe, they say if there is a risk, stop, a full stop. That’s a disastrous approach. I’d like policymakers to listen to the scientific advice that they’re getting and that they have ignored in Europe systemically in this area over the last 30 years.”
In some African countries, it’s illegal for farmers to plant biotech seeds or for scientists to do research on them, said Robert Paarlberg, a professor of political science at Wellesley College.
“Critics say biotechnology isn’t delivering in Africa,” he said. “But the technology isn’t delivering because it’s been stifled by a blanket of regulations.”

The United States needs to balance its aid to poorer countries to include grain and technology, Fedoroff said.

“In many places, we’re bringing in sacks of grain and that doesn’t solve the problem. Today, it’s good seeds, good fertilizer and all the modern technologies, and we’re not doing that.”

In some countries, farmers are driving the acceptance of biotech crops because they’re better, she said, leading to the development of a black market in biotech seeds.

Paarlberg said he disagrees with those who would prefer that African farmers stick with traditional methods and not have a green revolution similar to what Asian farmers went through in the 1960s and 1970s, which led many of them out of poverty.

“African farmers today are using traditional knowledge and almost none of them use any nitrogen fertilizer. They’re de facto organic and it’s not working. Their yields are only one-tenth as high as in rich countries and one-third of them are malnourished. Farmers should practice integrated farming. Use organic methods together with nitrogen fertilizer and you’ll have a productive agricultural system.”

Political barriers in countries such as India and the United States have also hindered the acceptance of biotech, Fedoroff said.
“There is a real reluctance to use modern science, that is, modern molecular modifications. There is an element of urban elites that has turned itself against modern molecular biology because people think what they grew up with was natural. They don’t realize how much modification has gone into making our agricultural plants.”
The reluctance of many to accept biotech isn’t a new phenomenon in agriculture, said Gale Buchanan,  former USDA undersecretary for research, education and economics.

“I can’t think of any innovation that’s come along in agriculture that hasn’t been controversial at some time. We have to make a different type of investment in agricultural research than we are making today. If we have more research, we’ll develop more innovative and thoughtful technology that the public at large can recognize.”

Poor infrastructure in many African countries is an additional obstacle farmers there must overcome, said Calestous Juma, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
“If you can move seed and you can move produce, you can feed people. Infrastructure is really necessary for agriculture, and without it, then you go back to subsistence agriculture where people grow only stuff they are going to consume because they can’t move it.”

Many Africans are isolated because of the lack of infrastructure, Paarlberg said. About 70 percent of all Africans live more than a 30 minute walk from the nearest all-weather road. The costs to get biotechnology and fertilizer to the farmers and to get crops to a market are extremely high, adding to the isolation, he said.
Despite the obstacles, Buchanan said he’s optimistic solutions can be found.

“I really believe we can address the needs we have to feed us and to provide energy and that, if we invest in the research and education that it takes to do that.

But we need to be thinking a little bit differently than solving today’s problems or tomorrow’s problems. We need to be thinking about problems 50 or 100 or 200 years from now.”