Biotech Helping Feed Africa

Farmers benefit from biotech crops production

SPECIAL REPORT BY XINHUA CORRESPONDENT PETER MUTAI

NAIROBI (Xinhua) -- Continued progress on commercialization of biotech crops was witnessed in all three countries in Africa during the 2009 period.

According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Application (ISAAA), South Africa has increased its hectarage by 17 percent while Burkina Faso increased by 14 percent.

The three countries broader coverage is of strategic importance because it allows more African countries to become practitioners of biotech crops and be able to benefit directly from learning by doing, a practice which has been proved to be very important.

This is a remarkable achievement given that Africa is the continent with the greatest challenge on food production compared to other continents.

As South Africa continue to export their biotech agricultural products such as maize, researchers now say that Kenya too could be on the beneficiary list once it adopts the technology.

With the food insecurity already ravaging most parts of sub Saharan Africa hence forcing countries to import food mainly maize and beans, the application of biotechnology could be of a solution to pest and diseases that wipe out millions of crops yearly.     Read More

You certainly get a different perspective about biotechnology in countries where so many people are starving.  There are no Michael Pollan’s in Africa and the reason is that many people over there wonder where their next meal is coming from.  Having the luxury to choose food that was raised in a certain way is a very foreign concept to people in Africa.  Our country has the ability to help feed these people yet we have full-stomached protesters and activists that are trying to stop that from happening.  This is why Pollan’s line of thinking is so out of touch with reality, a reality that too many people live with every day. 

Another Food Elitist

Against meat or against agriculture?
Drovers news source Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Animal Agriculture Alliance is disappointed that yet another anti-agriculture activist voice has been welcomed into the media spotlight.ﾠ New York Times readers were confronted with some of the most negative stereotypes of modern agriculture on Oct. 11, when Jonathan Safran Foer's "Against Meat" ran in the food edition of the Sunday magazine.

It's not a surprise to see Foer writing such a one-sided account of meat production. In 2006, he helped create a video entitled "If This is Kosher..." for PETA to encourage those of the Jewish faith to become vegetarians that included undercover footage from PETA and Animal Liberation Israel. He also sits on the Board of Directors for Farming Forward, a group that he cites within his article that actively promotes the greatest myths of modern farming as fact.

Farming Forward is a vegetarian activist group headed by a business consultant and a professor of religious studies; just as with Michael Pollan, an agricultural background is notably missing. The group's Web site pushes for agricultural practices that were replaced long ago by more productive and sustainable methods, stating that it is "easier to see inside a prison than a CAFO" and that "99 percent of meat is produced in unsustainable and cruel factory farming methods."

Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch is a farm supported by the group, and owner Frank Reese should be congratulated for the effort he has put into developing a niche market. It's important to note, however, that there is a cost associated with raising birds like this - two fresh Cornish chickens from Reese's farm cost $94 and 15 pounds of ground turkey goes for $104.99. Compare this with the $7 rotisserie chicken available at your grocery store and you can see why many people simply can't afford to eat the old-fashioned way. Read More

There seems to be no shortage of food elitists. They continue to receive undeserved praise for their unscrutinized opinions. It’s a plain and simple fact that if people like Pollan and Foer were to get their way, food production would drastically decline and widespread hunger would become the norm. Even where food was more available, the cost of it would be staggering. In today’s society, people have a choice of what type of food they want to buy, but Pollan and Foer want that choice taken away. So if you want to be told what and if you will eat then I would encourage you to support people like this, but if you enjoy the affordability and selection of today’s food supply then please support America’s farmers and ranchers.

Pollan's Views To Be Balanced By Others at Cal Poly

Controversy erupts over Michael Pollan's Poly lecture
Harris Ranch Beef chairman calls for 'balanced forum'
BY KATHY JOHNSTON

Nationally known sustainable food expert Michael Pollan will now be part of a panel discussion at Cal Poly on Oct. 15 rather than giving his planned one-hour lecture. The recently announced format change comes on the heels of a letter to Cal Poly President Warren Baker from Harris Ranch Beef Company Chairman David E. Wood, threatening to withdraw a pledged $500,000 donation for a new meat processing facility on the campus.

“I find it unacceptable that the university would provide Michael Pollan an unchallenged forum to promote his stand against conventional agricultural practices,” Wood wrote in a Sept. 23 letter to Baker. The invitation “caused me to rethink my continued financial support of the university,” he wrote.

Pollan is the award-winning author of An Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, and appears in a recent documentary, Food, Inc. He is a Knight Professor of Journalism at University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism.

The Sustainable Agriculture Resource Consortium, which invited Pollan to speak at a free lecture at 11 a.m. on Oct. 15 at the Performing Arts Center on campus, will now present “A Conversation with Michael Pollan,” which will also include Gary Smith, Monfort Endowed Chair in meat science at Colorado State University, and Myra Goodman, cofounder of organic vegetable company Earthbound Farms.

Baker replied to Wood in a Sept. 28 letter, “We are diligently working to create a more balanced forum for October 15. … Our singular goal is to provide our students with a full perspective on how the agriculture industry is working to be efficient in its production techniques, and to make sure that our students are familiar with the full range of ideas that are being advanced today.”
Each speaker will make opening comments before accepting written questions from the audience.

Harris Ranch spokesman Michael Smith, assistant to Wood, said in a phone interview from the beef company’s headquarters in Selma that a decision about funding for Cal Poly’s meat facility “has yet to be made.” Smith, a Cal Poly agriculture alumnus, said many alumni will be coming to the forum “as a show of force about the direction the College of Agriculture is taking.”

Smith said, “People across the nation are upset. They are saying enough is enough. This is bigger than Michael Pollan.” Read More

It’s very exciting for me to see that people are willing to stand up and defend agriculture and the need to grow enough food for everyone to eat against Michael Pollan. Three years ago when I would tell people about this guy and the lies and sensationalism that he used against my family and industry, most had never heard of him. Today, people are starting to realize that what he is promoting is reckless elitism. His plans would result in less food produced in a less efficient manner. He has tried to sell his ideas by blatantly misrepresenting the truth about modern production agriculture. And it’s not because he hasn’t seen it for himself. I spent two day with him back in 2002 as he was learning about the beef industry. But rather than sharing that knowledge with consumers, he chose to scare them instead. If he was the high quality writer that he’s given credit for, he wouldn’t have to sensationalize his stories to sell his books. Congratulations to Cal Poly and the alumni, who were instrumental in making sure Pollan’s one-sided half-truths aren’t the only story being told that day.

Robert Gates: Borlaug a 'warrior against hunger'

Colleagues and friends of Norman Borlaug remembered the Nobel Peace Prize winner on Tuesday as a humanitarian who "built armies of agricultural workers" to combat famine in the world's developing countries.



By BETSY BLANEY

Associated Press Writer



COLLEGE STATION, Texas —

Colleagues and friends of Norman Borlaug remembered the Nobel Peace Prize winner on Tuesday as a humanitarian who "built armies of agricultural workers" to combat famine in the world's developing countries.



Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was president of Texas A&M University during the scientist's tenure at the school, told about 1,000 who attended the memorial that Borlaug was a teacher, a scientist and a warrior against hunger.



He "inspired thousands to work to feed the world, and inspired millions to believe it's possible. Our most important observance of Norm's passing," Gates said, is to persist in that work and in that belief.



"This was Norm Borlaug the builder who at every opportunity encouraged learning, and built armies of agricultural workers," Gates said.



"He was in favor of anything that would keep hungry people fed," Ed Runge, the retired head of A&M's soil and crop sciences department and a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school, said before the memorial. "He used science to advance food production." Read More



The statement by Ed Runge really wrapped up what Dr. Borlaug was all about, “He was in favor of anything that kept hungry people fed.” It’s that type of attitude that more people need to have. There are many elitists on our society that don’t have that same mentality though. Michael Pollan and his followers would rather have a system that grows our food more slowly, and less efficiently. That was the type of agriculture that Dr. Borlaug grew up in and spent his life trying to change.

We Can Grow Enough, But Will We Be Allowed To?

Can We Grow More Food in 50 Years Than in All of History?
Science Leader Says Population and Global Warming Make the Job Hard
By NED POTTER
Oct. 5, 2009 —

How dire is the world's situation? So bad, says a leading Australian scientist, that the world will have to produce more food in the next 50 years than we have in the thousands of years since civilization began.

There have been dark predictions -- mostly wrong -- of worldwide food shortages before.
But this one comes from Megan Clark, the head of Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO. Clark is hardly a wild-eyed extremist; she is a former mining executive.

In a speech in Canberra last week, Clark said growing population will cause exponentially-rising demand, and a warming climate will make the challenge more difficult.

"It is hard for me to comprehend that in the next 50 years we will need to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history," she said.

In her Canberra speech, Clark said the difficulty will grow as more and more people move to cities and as a warming climate makes it more difficult to grow more crops.

There are others who say such worries are overblown, and that because of genetic engineering and other advances, there will not be vast increases in the numbers of the world's hungry.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It," has argued that there are really much more pressing priorities, such as disease. Read More

It’s not climate change, it’s not a lack of technology and it’s not too many people that will cause starvation in this world. The determining factor of whether or not we can grow enough food for everyone to eat is if society will give us the public license to utilize and develop the technology necessary to make it happen. If America’s farmers and ranchers are given the tools, we will be able to continue as the breadbasket of the world and keep hunger at bay. On the other hand, if our society chooses to abandon the use of livestock for food and refuse to accept new varieties of crops then starvation is something that we will have to learn to live with. It’s a rather simple choice. You can be for or against starvation.

The Passing of Norman Borlaug

The Father Of the Green Revolution
By Joe Holley and J.Y. Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 14, 2009

Norman E. Borlaug, 95, an American plant pathologist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for starting the "Green Revolution" that dramatically increased food production in developing nations and saved countless people from starvation, died Saturday at his home in Dallas.

"More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world," the Nobel committee said in honoring him. "Dr. Borlaug has introduced a dynamic factor into our assessment of the future and its potential."

Edwin Price, director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University, said his mentor died of cancer. Since 1984, Dr. Borlaug had been a distinguished professor of international agriculture there.

From the 1970s until his death, he increasingly took the politically incorrect view that environmentalists were hampering world food production by indiscriminately attacking the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

"They claim that the consumer is being poisoned out of existence by the current high-yielding systems of agricultural production and recommend we revert back to lower-yielding, so-called sustainable technologies," he said in a speech in New Orleans in 1993.

Unfortunately, he said, it is not possible to turn the clock back to the 1930s, when the population of the world was 2.2 billion. It was estimated at 5.6 billion in 1995 and was projected to rise to 8.3 billion by 2025. Read More

One of the great heroes in the history of agriculture, Norman Borlaug passed away this weekend at the age of 95. During his career, Borlaug always believed in using modern technology to end hunger. He believed in the proper use of fertilizers and chemicals as well. Those beliefs and his determination and hard work led to saving millions, if not billions, of people from starvation. He moved us away from the type of agriculture that many people like Michael Pollan and others want us to go back to. With a growing world population we have to continue moving forward with our ability to grow food, not backwards.