Supporting, Undermining Global Food Security

It's the case in the world of federal legislation that many people have their hands in any given legislative pie. A large bill has numerous parents, and the process is difficult and time-consuming enough that in general, if you get a thing or two that you want in the final product, you take your win and go home.

I get that. It's the way business is done.

Indeed, when you can get a strong Senate coalition to approve a measure that will ease global hunger, an aim that's strongly supported by the president, hey, celebrate.

Though somebody, somewhere, needs to keep an eye on the bigger picture.

The Global Food Security Act of 2009, S. 384, will mandate the acceptance of genetically modified crops as part of US foreign assistance. Which unfortunately means that what it gives to Africa and S. Asia with one hand, it likely takes away with the other.

That part of the bill needs to come out.

Now it must be admitted that traditional farming, while it's had notable achievements and fed all the people we descended from for many generations, had the occasional total collapse. Old school crossbreeding gave us many wonderful foods, but mobility and information sharing weren't what they are now and they were far more at the mercy of the weather.

Though the Green Revolution, where high-yield hybrids were added to new well-drilling, irrigation and synthetic fertilizer technology has in many cases tossed the baby out with the bath water.

Consider that India's current elections in Punjab, where the Green Revolution was embraced wholeheartedly, have as a major campaign issue the ongoing farmer suicides in the region. It's being reported that 4 kill themselves every day, with the toll having reached 1,600 in 2007.

They can't get proper loans for capital intensive farming, for the new seeds, new chemicals, and new wells that need to be dug as the water table drops ever lower, so they have to go to loan sharks. Green Revolution crops are good producers, though only if they're pampered. Then if anything goes wrong, like the rains aren't great or prices collapse, they end up deep in debt with no way out.

Farmers who don't commit suicide may lose their land to developers or government fiat. They move to some slum in a city where there's little hope of work for them and have to buy what they might once have grown. One way or another, small farmers stop farming and their expertise is lost along with any unique crop breeds they once cared for.

Every indication is that genetically modified seeds are an advantage over Green Revolution hybrids only in that they make a lot more money for their producers.

Now countries that have tried to keep genetically modified organisms out of their borders may be blackmailed into giving up. Even if you approve of genetically engineered crops, is it really the US' business to make that decision for other countries? I don't think so.

Which is why I'd appreciate it if you'd read up on this bill and contact your representatives to ask them to remove the biotechnology section from S. 384, even if you've already written them in support of it. There's no good argument for forcing this on the unwilling.

(Photo credit: visualpanic on Flickr.)