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Op-Ed Article
By Sebastian Mallaby
Columnist
The Washington Post, Page A23
Washington, D.C.
Monday, September 2, 2002
The politics of climate change features right-wing Americans ignoring
sound science, with bad consequences for humanity. The politics of
biotechnology features left-wing Europeans ignoring sound science, with
results that are equally nasty. And there's a further twist. Just when the
U.N. environmental summit in South Africa offers an occasion to decry
America's eco-vandalism, Europe's reckless ignorance threatens southern
Africans with starvation.
Zambia, whose famine-struck people are eating twigs and poisonous berries,
has balked at accepting American food aid for fear of the biotechnology that
produced it. The refusal is absurd, because Americans have been eating
biotech for years with zero ill effects on health or the environment. But
the refusal also can be explained. The European Union shuts out America's
genetically modified (GM) corn, encouraging Africans to doubt its safety.
What's more, Europe's stance has led Africans to fear that if they allow
modified genes into their countries, they may be barred from European export
markets.
Europe's anti-biotech message reaches more than Zambia. Recently Zimbabwe
and Mozambique also refused U.S. food aid, relenting only after striking
cumbersome deals to mill the donated corn to prevent farmers from replanting
it. In many poor countries, Europe's position deters the use of
biotech-enhanced seeds -- in other words, it deters innovation in a crucial
part of the economy. It's as though Europeans were to tell the United
States: "We'll import your cars as long as you fire the engineers who might
improve engine quality." But the Zambian famine represents a new low. The
effect of Europe's position is to say: "Don't boost production of your own
food, and don't eat foreign food either."
When Zambia first refused the food, the Europeans declared they wouldn't
intervene in this dispute. Then, perhaps realizing that their reputation
might suffer, the Europeans belatedly informed the Zambians that U.S. food
is fit for consumption. But Europe's actions speak louder than its words.
"If Europe has rejected the GMs then why should we accept them, just because
we are poor?" said Zambia's president recently.
Like those Americans who deny climate change, European biotech-bashers are
contemptuous of scientific standards. They know there's no evidence that
genetically modified crops are dangerous, so they invoke something called
the "precautionary principle"; this says, we have no grounds for shutting
out this stuff, but it gives us a queasy feeling, so we'll shut it out
anyway. Britain's technophobes have driven the government to conduct large
environmental trials to test for hypothetical hazards. But the trials are
disrupted by violent attacks on experimental crops -- apparently, the
technophobes don't want their hypotheses tested.
It's one thing for rich Europe to deny itself the benefits of biotech; it
can afford to pay extra for its breakfast. It's another to deny Africa the
chance to feed itself. Whereas the dangers of biotech are unproven, the
dangers of malnutrition are undeniable. One in three children in sub-Saharan
Africa is underfed and suffers consequences ranging from mental retardation
to blindness.
What's more, during the next 30 years, the world's population will rise
from 6 billion to 8 billion, and these people will need feeding. This can be
done by chopping down forests and planting marginal lands. Or it can be done
by boosting yields on existing farms, courtesy of new technology. Meantime
biotech has another advantage that Greens should love: Pest-resistant crops
can reduce farmers' need for chemicals.
There are two possible ways forward. Europe may come to its senses --
especially if the recent electoral advances for conservatives in France and
Holland are followed this month by a similar result in Germany. Officials at
the European Commission tried last year to lift the ridiculous moratorium on
approval of new biotech crops but retreated in the face of a political
storm. If Europe's electoral pendulum swings -- and if European consciences
twinge at the sight of starving Zambia -- perhaps the old continent will
come up with some new policies.
Failing that, the United States should force Europe to its senses. The
Bush trade team is mulling a challenge to Europe's biotech moratorium at the
World Trade Organization; the challenge probably would be upheld, because
Europe's policy is a trade obstacle unjustified by science or reason. Of
course, Europeans would yell that Yanks were thrusting Frankenfoods down
their unwilling throats; even the rumor of a trade challenge has driven the
leftish Guardian newspaper to editorialize that "the British government has
to decide between American corporations, which want access to European
markets, and its own citizens, who fear a new technology which appears
untested and threatening." But the truth is that biotechnology has been
tested and tested and found safe. If the Europeans really want to stake
their credibility on this dispute, let them.
To read the original article, go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24676-2002Sep1.html
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