It’s the Agronomy, Stupid

Are rising food prices going to reduce political resistance to planting GM crops?
We are already seeing this happen. A big food importer in Japan is now bringing in GM corn. Consumers mostly live in the city and don't normally think about how the food they eat got to market. The current crisis creates an opportunity because we can remind consumers how it happens and that agricultural policy needs to be carefully thought out. There are only a few countries in the world that export food, including the U.S., the former Soviet countries, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Australia. All these use GM crops, not because they are seeing increased productivity but because they are professional farmers and know GM gives them some important tools for modern agriculture. The first step for food companies is to explain to the wider public that GM is not what they feared. Policy makers are going to see it as an important tool. But we shouldn't use the food crisis to say that biotech is a silver bullet.

How much of the blame for high food prices should be attributed to ethanol produced from farm crops like corn?
Those who are demonizing ethanol are either misinformed or diverting attention from the real issues. I recently read a claim that anyone who fills up an SUV with corn-based ethanol is consuming enough corn to feed a poor family for year. Corn in the U.S. is only for animal feed. Only 3 percent of the U.S. crop is sweet corn for human consumption. So turning corn to ethanol is not taking food from peoples' mouths. No one is saying that if you didn't turn sugar cane into ethanol people would have more to eat. The major culprit for rising food prices is the cost of oil. There is a discussion about bioethanol that is warranted. It's about where, when and if governments should subsidize crops for biofuels. Some ways to make ethanol are more efficient than others. Sugar cane has a better conversion rate for bioethanol than does corn. But corn has contributed somewhat to energy self-sufficiency. Remember that we are at the cutting edge of this technology. To back away from biofuel now would be a global mistake.

© 2008