Food Shortages Make Biotech Grains More Attractive

For some time there has been opposition to bioengineered crops from environmental types and others who were convinced (without evidence, of course) that bioengineering would create some sort of "Frankencorn" or have other monstrous effect on humanity. With more traditional crops being moved from food into biofuel energy production, the world is now seeing soaring prices and shortages. As a result, food buyers aren't being quite so picky these days:

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky.

"We cannot afford it," said a corn buyer at Kato Kagaku, a Japanese maker of corn starch and corn syrup.

In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistance to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment.

"I think it's pretty clear that price and supply concerns have people thinking a little bit differently today," said Steve Mercer, a spokesman for U.S. Wheat Associates, a federally supported cooperative that promotes American wheat abroad.

The group, which once cautioned farmers about growing biotech wheat, is working to get seed companies to restart development of genetically modified wheat and to get foreign buyers to accept it.

Even in Europe, where opposition to what the Europeans call Frankenfoods has been fiercest, some prominent government officials and business executives are calling for faster approvals of imports of genetically modified crops. They are responding in part to complaints from livestock producers, who say they might suffer a critical shortage of feed if imports are not accelerated.

In Britain, the National Beef Association, which represents cattle farmers, issued a statement this month demanding that "all resistance" to such crops "be abandoned immediately in response to shifts in world demand for food, the growing danger of global food shortages and the prospect of declining domestic animal production."

The chairman of the European Parliament's agriculture committee, Neil Parish, said that as prices rise, Europeans "may be more realistic" about genetically modified crops: "Their hearts may be on the left, but their pockets are on the right."

I don't think that genetically altering corn to be more resistant to bugs and disease will result in giant corn cobs rampaging through rural towns while being chased by pitchfork and torch-bearing locals. If these methods can create greater yields while still producing a nourishing product, what's the problem?

The organic crowd can continue to eat their weevil-ridden products if they like, but we shouldn't allow their superstitions to starve parts of the world.

UPDATE: In a related story, PETA is offering a reward to anyone who can created "in vitro meat" to replace meat from livestock. It's caused a near riot among their members.