Biotech Crops Could Help Poor Farmers, U.N. Says

The debates over biotechnology have centered on the environmental, health, and global equality issues implicit in any major agricultural technology change. Some charge that genetically modified food crops are detrimental to environment, biodiversity, long-term health, and benefit rich nations at the expense of poor. The other side – which now seems to be joined by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) division of the UN – instead sees the technological innovations as having the great potential to improve living conditions for poor farmers and increase the food supply, without seriously harming the environment. In a new report released today, the FAO offers hope that a responsible investigation of new technologies could, in effect, usher in the second 'Green Revolution', helping poor farmers around the world adapt the modified crops for their own subsistence farming. This would only be possible if a radical shift occurred in where research dollars were concentrated, given that the current emphasis is on crops like soybeans that are grown in wealthier countries. Citing examples in China and South Africa, the FAO report aims to establish a vision for egalitarian technological development, which is, they claim, a "public responsibility". – YaleGlobal