 |
| Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB) President Gordon Wassenaar, left, and
ICPB CEO Craig Floss, right, thank Dr. Norman Borlaug for his support of
biotechnology at the International Biotechnology Information Conference
this week in Des Moines. |
Better
Communication Key to Biotechnology’s Role in Feeding
the World, Borlaug Tells International Biotechnology Information
Conference
(10-14-04)
If biotechnology
is to contribute to the world’s 21st century
challenge of feeding a world of 10 billion people, all stakeholders
in the science need to do a better job of explaining biotechnology’s
benefits, Dr. Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and World
Food Prize founder told the International Biotech Conference in
Des Moines this week.
Borlaug was the keynote speaker at the event, a
gathering of 75 top policymakers from 35 nations who are getting
an opportunity
to do what most Americans never come close to – witnessing
harvest while in full swing in Iowa, the nation’s leading
corn producer, and seeing first-hand biotech and non-biotech corn
production and handling. The conference is sponsored by the National
Corn Growers Association (NCGA), along with the U.S. Grains Council,
Iowa Corn Promotion Board, Nebraska Corn Board.
“With available information and research, we can feed 10
billion people. But if we are going to be able to use the technology,
we must first end the debate,” Borlaug said, reminding the
audience, “You can’t win by being nice guys.”
Whether he was a nice guy or not, Borlaug is known
as a man who has “saved more lives than any person who has ever lived” because
of his “Green Revolution” in wheat development that
helped Pakistan, India and a number of other countries improve
their food production in the 1960s. Since then, he has continued
working tirelessly in saving millions from starvation and suffering,
mainly through the World Food Prize, which he established in 1976.
If not for biotechnology, the roadblocks to feeding the world
Borlaug illustrated are downright scary. For instance, he noted,
the world food supply must be doubled over the next 30 years.
“However, 80 percent of future growth in food production
must come from lands already in production,” he said, adding
there is limited potential for land expansions except in South
America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa itself, with 200 million
hungry people, according to Borlaug, presents the greatest concern. “Africa
faces declining soil fertility and little application of improved
technology, rural isolation because of a lack of roads and transport
and poor education and health services,” he said.
Before the technology to increase yields, battle
pests, disease and weeds, resist drought and adverse weather
conditions and improve
nutritional quality is put to use on a worldwide basis, Borlaug
stresses, the debate over “GMOs” needs to end. He explained
that the term GMO, or genetically modified organism, is a misnomer
that leftwing environmental groups use to create unwarranted fear
and skepticism.
“After all, Mother Nature is a biotechnologist,” he
said, describing the slow, natural evolution of wheat from its
early varieties to the bread wheat that is used today. Before issuing
his call to action to technology providers and producers to better
communicate the benefits of biotechnology, Borlaug said he has
his own personal “biotechnology dreams.”
“I have a dream that someday we will be able to transfer
rice’s immunity to rusts to other cereals such as wheat,
maize, sorghum and barley,” he said. “I also envision
the transfer of bread wheat’s proteins for making superior
dough for leavened bread to other cereals, especially rice and
maize.”
In addition to hearing from Borlaug, conferees got a close-up
look at agriculture this week during tours of the farm of Iowa
Corn Promotion Board (ICPB) President Gordon Wassenaar, Pioneer
Hi-Bred International, Inc., Hy-Vee Supermarket, Iowa State University,
and the Greater Omaha Pack Facility in Nebraska.