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The Ottawa Citizen
Wed 26 Jan 2000
Two views on food biotechnology: Scientists
are closer than ever to genetically engineering rice with vitamin A which,
some believe, can be a powerful tool to fight malnutrition and child blindness
in the developing world.
As in the rest of the world, activists from Africa and Asia are divided
on the merits of food biotechnology. Citizen writer Pauline Tam spoke
with two activists from the developing world about their views.
Chee Yoke Ling is a lawyer who works for the Malaysia-based group Third
World Network. The non-profit think-tank and advocacy group focuses on
environment and development issues.
Citizen: Scientists recently announced a genetically engineering rice
with vitamin A and iron. What's your response to this development?
Chee Yoke Ling: Just from the reports, one is not really able to assess
whether this represents the success scientists are talking about. What
are the full implications from the scientific point of view? ... Are there
unpredictable side effects to that kind of genetic engineering?
Secondly and more fundamentally is that malnutrition is an issue of poverty
and food distribution. And if the majority people are poor and have no
access to food, then how can this new rice help them, even if it works?
Citizen: What would prevent this rice from reaching people?
Chee: With a rice like this, the first thing that will happen is that
it will be patented. And if it does work, it will be something that can
bring a lot of money to the parties involved and we just don't see how
this will benefit poor countries.
Already we see this in the area of drugs for HIV. Recently, because of
fear of an AIDS epidemic, some African countries led by South Africa tried
to get the WHO (World Health Organization) to agree that HIV drugs should
become generic drugs so that they can then be available ... at a cheaper
price. And the U.S. led the protest against that because the pharmaceutical
industry did not
want lose out on the premium.
So the same thing will happen with the food industry. If this rice works,
it will not be available for free. And if they want to make some of it
available, it will be tied up with subsidies from aid.
Citizen: What role do you see for genetically modified food as a development
tool?
Chee: The more groups like ours at the Third World Network look into the
issue of genetic engineering ... the more we have come to the conclusion
that genetic engineering is not the option for food security (or) biodiversity
conservation.
Genetic engineering focuses on the interactions of particular genes as
opposed to the whole organism. And it does ignore ... the interactions
with the environment and with other species and the whole socio-economic
fabric of agriculture. In agriculture and food production, there are so
many alternatives that already
exist, from organic farming to different kinds of farming systems, which
are diverse and which are productive.
Citizen: Do you see any benefits in food biotechnology?
Chee: At the moment, it's really hard to say. We haven't found any convincing
benefits because every supposed benefit has either been overrated or the
products have not worked. The more we look into it, we realize the long-term
risks to biodiversity and to health outweigh the benefits. We need to
pull together biology, ecology, sociology so that we can look at food
production and agriculture in the way that it should be looked at.
Citizen: What is the mood in Asia concerning genetically engineered food?
Chee: In the last one or two years, the public awareness from farmers
and consumers has grown tre-mendously. People are asking questions. Farmers
who have moved to ecological farming are worried about genetic engineering
and how that might contaminate their fields. Consumers are finding out
about problems of health.
The problem is, governments and agencies of developed countries have also
promoted the mantra of the biotechnology industry that this is the way
forward.
Citizen: What would you like to see come out of these talks on biosafety
that address the interests of the developing world?
Chee: We want a biosafety agreement that says before any (genetically
engineered) product leaves (a) country, we have to have all the food information
so that we can assess. And yes, there is a need for the capacity of developing
countries to assess. But the more we've learned about how regulatory systems
work or don't work in Europe and North America and Japan, we
realize that it is so unscientific.
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