Global Policy Forum

By Marc Morano

Debate over the social and moral pluses and minuses of using biotechnology to feed the world's starving populations is about to intensify. Pope John Paul II is contemplating whether to accept the recommendation of a Vatican council document that endorsed the idea of genetically modified (GM) food production.

"The problem of hunger involves the conscience of every man, and in particular, those of the Christians," Cardinal Renato Martino told Vatican Radio earlier this week. Martino, head of the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace which produced the document endorsing GM food production, is awaiting the pope's approval. John Paul II's decision is expected sometime this fall.

"The Catholic Church follows with special interest and solicitude every development in science to help the solution of a plight that afflicts such a large part of humanity," Martino said on Vatican Radio - a statement embraced by GM advocates in the United States, especially since it revolved around moral reasoning.

"I look forward to the [Vatican's] final word," said Dennis Avery, director of the Center for Global Food Issues, a free market food advocacy group. Avery said wealthy European nations with environmental movements fearful of any genetic tinkering of food-producing plants also need convincing. But, he added, "We are talking about a battle for the hearts and minds of people who are not hungry." Avery believes the growing worldwide food demand can only be met by using what he sees as higher crop-yielding GM food technology. "The only choices we have are to destroy the wildlife, destroy half the people or triple the crop yields again. Biotech is our best hope for doing that," Avery said.

Genetically modified crops are the result of altered seeds designed to increase yields and withstand drought with the use of fewer pesticides. GM foods have also been the focus of disputes between the United States and the European Union.

The U.S., which produces biotech corn and soybean crops, has been advocating the use of GM foods in famine-ravaged African nations, but the E.U. has threatened Africa with trade retaliation if the countries accept the technology. The U.S. has also filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization seeking to get Europe to lift its ban on GM foods.

Avery believes GM foods are the key to preserving the natural world while feeding the world's growing population. "There are a billion people living in the third world's bio-diversity hot spots. They are tying to live by hunting down game - risking immediate extinction and slashing and burning low yield crops," Avery said. "Where is the [environmentalist] concern? The other alternative is they set up a gas chamber and knock out three to four billion people. Is that moral?" Avery asked. "Can we morally not pursue biotechnology in a more populated and affluent world that will demand nearly three times as much food by 2050?" he added.

'Caution is probably the best thing'

But Jaydee Hanson of the United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C., warned that GM foods could be hazardous to your health. "We have, through traditional breeding, plants that turned out to be toxic," Hanson told CNSNews.com. Hanson serves as the assistant general secretary of the United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society. "As you're jumping not just species boundaries but whole [animal] kingdom boundaries and putting things into plants and into animals, caution is probably the best thing," Hanson said. More testing is necessary of GM foods, Hanson insisted. "Right now, for anything other than allergic reactions, [GM foods] are not being tested," said Hanson, who also favors food labels that specify the existence of any GM organisms.

But Avery refuted the charge that GM foods are unsafe. "Their claims that it is unsafe ring hollow after 10 years in which biotech has yet to cause a skin rash," Avery said. Avery believes the European Union's opposition to GM food aid to African nations like Zambia is immoral. "It's unconscionable, it's unconscionable. To go to famine areas and say the food aid is poison, how different is that from crying fire in a crowded theatre, except the scale is larger and the victims are harder to find afterwards," Avery said.

Hanson disputed that GM food aid to Africa will help ameliorate famine. "I don't think people are starving because they won't accept U.S. food aid...the bottom line is it's not a lack of good seed that is causing people to be hungry," Hanson said. Hanson pointed to war, AIDS and the debt problems of African nations as the chief causes of famine on the continent. "If you are worried about calorie deficiencies, so far, most GM foods are not going to solve that problem," Hanson said.

'Point of being near criminal'

Avery hopes that environmentalists will drop their opposition to GM foods because he believes the higher crop yields offered by the technology will save more wild lands from conversion to agriculture. "This is what the green activists should be saying about biotech, that it is our best hope for providing for all of the world's children and its wildlife in the 21st century," Avery said. "For a very long time," Avery added, "the environmental movement has used fear of losing nature as a way to justify their [anti] DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) position and anti-biotech position, and both of those positions are immoral to the point of being near criminal."

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