EWG gives many many reasons why they think you should use the guide, specifying that you (the consumer) should eat organic or at least choose the Clean 15™ over the  Dirty Dozen™:

The 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables (the “Dirty Dozen”) are contaminated with an average of 10 different pesticides, with many tainting more than one type of produce. In contrast, the “Clean 15,” the 15 least contaminated fruits and vegetables, contain an average of less than 2. Eating organic food lowers pesticide body burdens as well. Research shows that concentrations of pesticides in children’s bodies peak during seasons that they eat the most produce, but fall to below detectable levels in just 5 days when they eat organic food.

The list of reasons has a lot of scary facts about how many pesticides detected on food, just how “polluted” our bodies are from the things we eat, and explains how our government barely regulates pesticides. Near the bottom, EWG lets us know that despite the scary facts that the need to eat fresh produce outweighs any risk from pesticide residues. They also remind consumers of the importance of eating fresh produce on their FAQ page. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if anyone gets to that part, considering that media coverage of the Shopper’s Guide rarely mentions it, instead focusing on the scary facts (as in ‘Dirty dozen’ produce carries more pesticide residue, group says on CNN Health, which dismisses the silly government for thinking that small amounts of pesticides won’t hurt us).

The truth is, pesticides are scary. As EWG’s Amy Rosenthal says, “Pesticides are designed to kill things.”

The devil, as always, is in the details.

We need the EWG

Before we get into those details, I’d like to say a few things about the Environmental Working Group in general, or really any group that does what EWG tries to do. EWG has the ability to provide a very important benefit to society. Government spending on science has decreased over the years, leaving most toxicity research to the companies that make the products being tested. Until we follow the wise leadership of India and develop a network of government certified independent testing labs, we’re all kind of left with less information than I’d prefer for many products we use every day. It’s not that I think every corporation is driven by people who choose profits over safety (on the contrary, they have to at least think their products are safe or suffer bad press or worse if people get sick) but results of corporate funded tests are often not made available to the public which leaves regulators with less info than they need to make good science-based decisions. Our system works fairly well (the grand majority of people get through life without health problems caused by things they can’t control other than their own genetics*) but it could always be better. EWG works to get information to regulators and presents a non-industry point of view, which is much needed. Unfortunately, despite their outwardly awesome intentions, some of the results are less than awesome.

Details, details

Danger, elephants. Taken by Adam Foster at Knowsley Safari Park in England. via Flickr.

In the materials accompanying the Shopper’s Guide, there are two details that are never discussed.

The first elephant in the room is dose. For any compound, from water to arsenic to ricin to organophosphates, there are amounts that are safe and amounts that are hazardous. There are amounts that will cause acute (immediate) reactions and amounts that will cause chronic problems after long term exposure. Are the amounts of pesticides found on produce enough to cause acute or chronic health problems? The EWG list does consider amount, but does not compare the amounts to EPA guidelines. The accompanying materials focus on the number of pesticides, not the dose.

The second elephant is the type of pesticides that were found on produce. There isn’t any weighting in the Shopper’s Guide of individual pesticides based on relative toxicity. This could be a problem because not all pesticides are created equal. Organophosphates, for example, are extremely dangerous because they affect cholinesterase, an enzyme that is essential for the human nervous system. Glyphosate, on the other hand, affects EPSPS, an enzyme that is only found in plants so human toxicity is low (surfactants and other ingredients in glyphosate containing herbicides may be dangerous in their own right, but EWG to my knowledge isn’t talking about those types of ingredients).

Careful consideration of dose and toxicity of pesticides on produce may mean a reordering of the list is necessary in order to truly keep consumers safe. It may also mean that many of the scary facts need some sober facts alongside to help us keep things in perspective. Let’s look at the  methods that EWG used to make the list and at the original USDA data.

EWG’s Methods

I have to tip my hat to EWG for providing their methods on their website. I don’t know how many people look at it, but I certainly did! They provide justifications for not discussing dose or type of pesticide:

The goal is to include a range of different measures of pesticide contamination to account for uncertainties in the science. All categories were treated equally; for example, a pesticide linked to cancer is counted the same as a pesticide linked to brain and nervous system toxicity, and the likelihood of eating multiple pesticides on a single food is given the same weight as the amounts of the pesticide detected or the percent of the crop on which pesticides were found.

The problem is that, as strange as it may sound, there are safe amounts of pesticides. With the incredibly low detection limits that advanced methods provide us, we can expect many positive results that aren’t biologically significant. This is why the EPA bothers to determine tolerance limits for each pesticide (see below: The Data). The EWG continues:

The EWG’s Shopper’s Guide is not built on a complex assessment of pesticide risks but instead reflects the overall pesticide loads of common fruits and vegetables. This approach best captures the uncertainties of the risks of pesticide exposure and gives shoppers confidence that when they follow the guide they are buying foods with consistently lower overall levels of pesticide contamination.

In other words, science-based risk assessment is bad because it’s complex? A less complex and unscientific method gives consumers more confidence than a science-based method? Perhaps, but this explanation of the method is a little too close to fibbing for my taste. Maybe we need to look deeper.

EWG looked at contamination in 6 different ways:

• “Percent of samples tested with detectable pesticides.” Assuming that the data was used properly, this is a good metric. It tells us how many of all the samples within a category had pesticide residues.
• “Percent of samples with two or more pesticides.” This metric might be useful if we are concerned about potential effects of consuming more than one pesticide.
• “Average number of pesticides found on a single sample.” This isn’t as useful as a median number of pesticides could be. If most of the samples contain 0 pesticides, the average would be lower than the median. If only one of the samples contains a very large number of pesticides, the average would be artificially high.
• “Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found.” Here’s where the science gets thrown out. The type of pesticide isn’t considered even though we know that some pesticides are dangerous at low doses while other pesticides are safe at much higher doses. The ppm of different pesticides should not be averaged unless they have similar toxic doses. No where on the Shopper’s Guide site  is there a discussion of how the pesticide levels found in produce match up to EPA guidelines, or how those guidelines are created (in most cases the guidelines from the EPA are at least 10 times lower than the actual dangerous dose).
• “Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample.” This isn’t very useful either. Perhaps one sample was grown by a particularly zealous farmer who used more pesticides than she should. Perhaps the single sample was accidentally contaminated. Should the entire category of produce be condemned because of this single sample, out of hundreds of samples? Using the media number of pesticides for all of the samples make much more sense.
• “Total number of pesticides found on the commodity.” Again, this number could be based on one or a few samples which are not representative of all of the samples.

The Data

High speed capture of dye droplets by Derek Purdy. via Flickr.

Since 1991, the Agricultural Marketing Service (part of the USDA) has collected data on pesticide residues in food as part of the Pesticide Data Program (PDP) using pretty rigorous methods (pdf). In addition to this testing, the FDA tests domestic and imported food to ensure that pesticide residues are below the tolerance levels (FDA probably doesn’t test enough samples due to funding cuts but that’s another post). The results are compared to tolerance levels (maximum pesticide residue limits) that are set by the EPA (you can find the tolerance for each crop/pesticide/country combo at Maximum Residue Levels database). According to the Latest PDP Findings of Interest to Consumers (pdf), ”the vast majority of samples tested are well below the tolerance levels”. Specifically:

The USDA provides some comparisons to help us understand what 1 part per million is: 1 ounce of salt in a mountain of 62,500 pounds of sugar or 1 ounce of dye in 7,350 gallons of water.

The most recent Annual Summary of the PDP (pdf) contains data that was collected in 2008 and was released in December 2009. The Executive Summary tells us that 11,960 samples were analyzed, including fresh and processed fruit and vegetables (9,028 and 1,354 samples respectively), almonds, honey, corn, and rice (municipal drinking water is also tested). The positive pesticide residue detections were combined by food type; on average 1.6% of samples had positive residue detections. For fresh produce, positive samples ranged from 0 to 3.3% with an average of 1.9%. They go on to say:

For samples containing residues, the vast majority of the detections were well below established tolerances and/or action levels. Before allowing the use of a pesticide on food crops, EPA sets a tolerance, or maximum residue limit, which is the amount of pesticide residue allowed to remain in or on each treated food commodity. Established tolerances are listed in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 40, Part 180. In setting the tolerance, EPA must make a safety nding that the pesticide can be used with “reasonable certainty of no harm” and that residues at (or below) the tolerance are safe. The reporting of residues present at levels below the established tolerance serves to ensure and verify the safety of the Nation’s food supply.

To restate, the methods used to detect pesticides are very sensitive, but a positive sample does not indicate a problem unless the detected level is above the established tolerance level. “A tolerance violation occurs when a residue is found that exceeds the tolerance level or when a residue is found for which there is no established tolerance.”

There were 60 samples that exceeded tolerance levels, making up 0.5% of all the samples (58 with 1 residue exceeding the tolerance and 2 with 2). There were 442 samples that had pesticide residues that don’t have established tolerance levels, making up 3.7% of all the samples (one reason why there isn’t an established tolerance level is that the pesticide in question isn’t labeled for use on the specific crop being tested). “In most cases, these residues were detected at very low levels and some residues may have resulted from spray drift or crop rotations.” Starting on page 51 of 202, the results are presented in a table the includes the number of samples tested, the number of positive samples by pesticide type, the amount of pesticide detected, and the EPA tolerance for that pesticide. I encourage you to see the report for all the details. The actual data can be downloaded from the Agriculture Marketing Service, although sadly it isn’t in any sort of convenient format (I’m wrestling with the data right now).

Peaches

There do seem to be some discrepancies between what EWG says the USDA data says and what the USDA data says.

The EWG says “more than 96 percent of peaches tested positive for pesticides”, and “peaches had been treated with more pesticides than any other produce, registering combinations of up to 67 different chemicals.” That sounds pretty bad.

Table 3 of the 2008 USDA report lists the “Number of Samples Analyzed and Summary of Results per Commodity” (page 34). According to this table, 616 peach samples were analyzed, with an average number of 130 different analyses conducted on each individual sample, resulting in a total of 80,184 tests done on the 616 peach samples. Of these tests, 2,155 were positive for pesticide residues, and 52 different pesticides were detected. While the number of positive detections out of all the tests isn’t the same as the number of positive samples out of all the samples, it is still interesting to know that only 2.7% of all the tests conducted on peaches were positive.

52 isn’t 67. 2.7% isn’t 96%. What’s happening here?

EWG didn’t use the most recent data. Instead, they seem to have combined data from 2000 to 2008. That seems very strange to me, considering that EPA regulations for allowed pesticide use and allowed pesticide tolerances have been changing over the years, becoming more strict. At least they didn’t include pre-2000 data, but still this isn’t the best way to find the information that consumers want. We need to know how many fruits and vegetables today are positive for pesticides, not all the fruits and vegetables in the past decade.

Even when we consider the fact that the EWG isn’t working with the best dataset, that still doesn’t answer how they decided that more than 96% of peaches were positive for pesticides. Hopefully the answer will be clear once I’ve looked at the USDA data myself.

If not scary “facts”, then what?

I am definitely an advocate of using science-based approaches to farming that reduce input use overall, and of careful Integrated Pest Management strategies that use the safest possible solutions to any pest problem, only using inputs if other options have been unsuccessful, and using the safest possible pesticide whether that pesticide is natural or synthetic.

How do we encourage government to introduce regulation that will make this happen and how do we encourage consumers to care about this enough to talk to their elected officials?

The best course of action would be to present the information in a less agenda driven way. Provide the data along with the EPA guidelines, which would show that the great majority of produce is well within guidelines. There are ways to advocate for reduced pesticide use without alarming people unnecessarily.

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* In the developed world, health problems caused by our own choices (bad nutrition, lack of exercise, smoking, and so on) dwarfs any problems that might be caused by normal use of household chemicals, plastics, foods, etc.

Note: A group called Alliance for Food and Farming, called an “industry front group” by EWG has challenged the Shopper’s Guide, saying that it unnecessarily alarms consumers. I have not read any materials from AFF on this subject prior to writing this post to be sure that my comments were not based even subconsciously on their comments. I heard about the AFF response through the Iowa State Sustainable Agriculture Listserv, which led me to write a few responses about the Shopper’s Guide to the original poster which then were turned into this post. This year’s Shopper’s Guide came out in June 2010.

Bt effectively and selectively kills certain insects. Images from the Bacillus thuringiensis info page.

Bt, short for Bacillus thuringiensis, is a bacteria that produces a protein that kills certain types of insects. Different types of the gene that produces thais protein have been engineered into crops to make them resistant to those insects. The approach has been quite successful but the details can be confusing.

If you’re looking for science-based information on Bt crops, check out the Bacillus thuringiensis info page that was developed by Karen Chien of the University of California, San Diego, with the assistance of Raffi Aroian. The material is a little dated, but it’s still a great resource. I especially enjoy the cartoons!  :)

The Aroian lab studies the ways that “target pests develop resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis crystal proteins in order to protect this valuable natural resource.” They’re also studying how Bt could be used to treat parasites in animals and people, as in their recent article in PLoS: Bacillus thuringiensis Cry5B protein is highly efficacious as a single-dose therapy against an intestinal roundworm infection in mice (full text).

Thanks to Mica Veihman (@Mica_MON on Twitter) for reminding me about this great resource.

An Arabidopsis stomate showing two guard cells exhibiting green fluorescent protein and native chloroplast (red) fluorescence. via Wikipedia.

This image is an extreme closeup of a stomate (singular, the plural form is stomata). These two cells, called guard cells, control the plant’s respiration: how much carbon dioxide gets in and how much oxygen and water vapor gets out. The control isn’t very good, though. Most plants just have their stomata open all day every day so they can pull in lots of CO2 to use during photosynthesis to make sugar. And that means a lot of water, painstakingly pulled up from the soil, through the roots, gets lost. If stomata could be more selective, only opening when more CO2 was needed for photosynthesis, then water could be conserved.

An enzyme called carbonic anhydrase raises the levels of CO2 in chloroplasts so the plant can make plenty of sugar. It does this by converting CO2 from its storage form carbonic acid back to it’s useable form: CO2 + H2O ⇌ H2CO3.

Carbonic anhydrase also appears in the guard cells, where it controls the opening and closing of stomata.

Julian Schroeder, Professor of Biology at UC, San Diego hypothesized that more carbonic anhydrase in the guard cells would place tighter control over opening and closing. His group tried shutting off the carbonic anhydrase gene in the stomata of a little plant called Arabidopsis. Those plants were unable to respond to increased CO2 concentrations in the air, remaining open all day. They also tried expressing additional copies of the carbonic anhydrase gene in the stomata. Those plants closed their stomata when water was scarce. This makes sense – carbonic anhdrase needs water to function, so it can’t function when water’s not around.

Honghong Hu, a postdoctoral research working on the project, said in the press release Newly Identified Enzymes Help Plants Sense and Respond to Elevated Carbon Dioxide and Could Lead to Water-wise Crops: “The guard cells respond to CO2 more vigorously. For every molecule of CO2 they take in, they lose 44 percent less water.”

This research, Carbonic anhydrases are upstream regulators of CO2-controlled stomatal movements in guard cells, published in January 2010, indicates that increasing the number of carbonic anhydrase genes in the stomata could potentially decrease the water lost through stomata in crops. The implications for drought prone regions are obvious. Plants could need less water and could hold on to the water they have longer. It won’t be plug and play, though. As stated in the press release, water that evaporates from stomata cools the plants just like water evaporating from our pores cools us. Increased expression of carbonic anhydrase will have to be tested to determine its effects on plants in high temperature environments.

Hu H, Boisson-Dernier A, Israelsson-Nordström M, Böhmer M, Xue S, Ries A, Godoski J, Kuhn JM, & Schroeder JI (2010). Carbonic anhydrases are upstream regulators of CO2-controlled stomatal movements in guard cells. Nature cell biology, 12 (1) PMID: 20010812

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Thanks to @RivenCactus for bringing this research to my attention by Tweeting a link to the TreeHugger article Newly Discovered Enzyme Could Create Crops That Thrive in Dry, High CO2 Conditions.

If a gene like this was used to make crops more drought tolerant, could it spread to weeds and make weeds weedier?

Yes and no.

If there was a sexually compatible wild relative or weed species growing nearby the drought tolerant crop, it is possible that weed/crop hybrids could include the gene. Sexual compatibility means that the weed not only has to be a fairly close relative to the crop but also means that they have to be pollinated by the same method, have pollen shed at the same time, not have any incompatibility genes, etc. In the United States, there are few weed species that are sexually compatible with crop species, but there are some. In these cases, farmers can use the same sort of strategies to reduce gene flow that they would use to avoid spread of a conventionally bred trait.

If gene flow does happen, the gene will only be present in the weed population at low levels, unless the gene makes the weeds that have it able to outcompete weeds that don’t have it. See Escape! Crop-Specific Gene Flow to Wild Relatives and Those naughty plants! on Biofortified for more discussion of gene flow.

The donation

Monsanto’s May 13 Press Release Monsanto Company Donates Conventional Corn and Vegetable Seeds to Haitian Farmers to Help Address Food Security Needs is a good place to start to find out exactly what was donated and how it got there. Importantly, the donation was approved and by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry was involved in selecting seeds that would be “appropriate for the growing conditions and farming practices in Haiti.” The exact way the seeds are being distributed ensures long term benefits from this one time donation:

The initial seed shipment will be distributed to Haitian farmers by the WINNER project, a five-year program to increase farmer productivity funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). WINNER will provide the in-country expertise, technical services and other inputs, such as fertilizer, needed by farmers to manage the crops.

“Our goal is to reach 10,000 farmers this growing season with these seeds,” said Jean Robert Estime, the director of the WINNER project. “The vegetables and grain these seeds will produce will help feed and provide economic opportunities for farmers, their families and the broader community. Agriculture is key to the long-term recovery.”

The seeds are being provided free of charge by Monsanto. The WINNER project will distribute the seeds through farmer association stores to be sold at a significantly reduced price. The farmer stores will use the revenue to reinvest in other inputs to support farmers in the future. The farmer associations alone will receive revenue from the sales.

I can’t think of a better way for this donation to be distributed. There are a lot of problems with the way international food and agriculture aid have been handled in the past, but the situation certainly seems to be improving as private and public donors as well as governments see the need for education and infrastructure, not handouts.

Food aid is the worst. It’s good enough in the very short term, but as soon as the food is consumed, there is no lasting benefit. Donations of seed are better, but again, once they are used there is no lasting benefit. Seed donations in combination with development of infrastructure that farmers need to distribute their products and to obtain inputs are much better, and I’d argue that such infrastructure development in combination with extension is the best possible way to help farmers, particularly when local people are involved in the process – which is exactly the case here. Ideally, part of the process would be to develop local seed production, but the information available on WINNER doesn’t say if that is included or not. The Earth Institute at Columbia University is also involved in improving agriculture in Haiti.

You may have noticed a distinct lack of terms like biotech, genetically modified, GMO, Roundup Ready, or Bt in the press release. Haiti has no system in place for regulation of biotechnology, according to FAO’s Biotechnology Country Profile for Haiti. Haiti is “party of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Cartagena Protocol” which, as I understand it, requires member countries to develop precautionary-principle based rules to protect biosafety if they want to even have biotech seeds cross their boundaries. In short, the regulatory framework needed to grow biotech crops in Haiti does not exist. Without that framework, they can’t accept biotech seed as a donation, and as far as I know, Monsanto did not even consider donating GMO seed to Haiti.

The hyperbole

It seems that the details in the press release and the lack of biotech regulation in Haiti was missed by many in the days following the news. Some examples are Timi Gerson’s appropriately civil Five Questions Monsanto Needs to Answer about its Seed Donation to Haiti at Civil Eats and  Jean-Yves Urfie’s  not so civil (and completely fabricated) A New Earthquake Hits Haiti: Monsanto’s deadly gift of 475 tons of genetically-modified seeds to Haitian farmers. These two articles seem to be the source of many of the erroneous posts and Tweets. Some of Timi’s questions are answered in the press release itself while some require a little background in crop science. Her questions are well thought out, if not well researched, so I think they are a good place to start, even though I’m obviously not the intended answerer. I don’t think Jean-Yves’s article is even worth addressing, it’s so completely made up – but I thought it should be included here since it has been cited in so many other blog posts and articles.

Five questions

1. What do Haitians think? Do Haitian farmers actually want these seeds?

Members of the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture and Haitians in the WINNER project were involved in approving the donation and making it happen, so that’s at least some Haitians who want the seeds. As for the farmers, they have the choice to buy the seed or to not in the stores run by farmer associations listed in the press release. No one is forcing them to take, buy, or grow the seeds. Even if individual farmers don’t want the seed, is that a good reason to prevent every farmer from having the seed? Is it fair to keep farmers from having a choice because organizations outside Haiti like the Organic Consumers Association (based in the US) don’t want them to? Anything other than letting the farmers for themselves choose is tantamount to paternalism.

2. Will Haitian farmers be able to save the seed?

Yes. Haiti doesn’t have any laws in place to protect plant intellectual property such as Plant Variety Protection (at least according to Haiti’s Biotechnology Country Profile), so even if Monsanto wanted to prevent the farmers from planting the seed from this year’s harvest, there would be no legal basis for the contract. On Beyond the Rows, Monsanto employees have clearly stated that these seeds can be replanted without any intellectually property interference. There will be no Haitian Percy Schmeiser, even if the seeds are brought into local breeding programs.

Some of the seeds are hybrid. Hybrid seed can be replanted, but many farmers choose to purchase hybrid seed each year due to the superior qualities that hybrids can have. (more on this in a minute)

3. Will Haitian farmers be able to use existing farming methods?

Per the press release: the seeds were selected by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, to be “appropriate for the growing conditions and farming practices in Haiti.” To me, the big question is: how are Haitian farmers currently farming?  Are they using de facto organic (put the seeds in the ground and hope)? Certified organic? Sustainable agriculture ? Conventional agriculture?

There’s not much info out there on the web to answer the question, but Manuel Rivas (Monsanto’s Regulatory Affairs Lead in the Andean Region, Central America & Caribbean) has shared some pertinent info on one of the Beyond the Rows posts:

…the corn hybrids sent to Haiti have been tested in the region with no fertilizer use and the yield obtained with them has been higher than the average yield Haitian farmers currently obtain using their open pollinated varieties.

…although farmers there have very limited resources in general, the use of fertilizers and pesticides is quite normal among them. Many times Hatian farmers don’t have the resources to purchase those inputs, but they know how to use them and they do use them whenever they have access to them.

The assumption that almost everyone has when they see the state of poverty in Haiti is that agriculture in the country is in the pre-historic ages. However, keep in mind that Haiti has a long tradition in agriculture since colonial times and not so long ago (in the 70’s) the country was an important exporter of sugar, coffee, tobacco, and mangoes, just like other countries in the Caribbean. The use of agricultural inputs in those crops and in rice (the most important local crop) has been very common with most of them coming across the border from the Dominican Republic. Political problems in the last 25 years or so have practically destroyed the country’s agriculture sector and made the country dependent on foreign aid; but the farmers are still there trying to survive and willing to make their land productive again.

What’s exciting about this seed donation, in combination with the WIN

NER program, is that there is potential for a lasting improvement of farmer’s ability to purchase inputs if they wish to, along with the in-country expertise to help them choose the best farming methods for their situation. While the WINNER program won’t last forever, five years is a long time to get a strong, sustainable system started.

4. Will Monsanto donate GMO seeds to Haiti?

No, for the aforementioned reasons.

5. Will indigenous seeds be “contaminated” by Monsanto’s seeds?

Yes and no. Gene flow is simple and complex at the same time. For the most part, pollen stays near the source, but in a country as small as Haiti (10,714 mi²), wind and pollinators could conceivably carry pollen all over the country. If farmers who choose to plant traditional varieties, they will be able to maintain those varieties. Some percentage of the seed that they harvest at the end of this growing season will be a hybrid between the traditional variety and the new seed, depending on how close they are physically to a farmer who planted the new seed. Conversely, the farmer who planted the new seed will have a certain percentage of his harvest “contaminated” with the traditional variety. They can keep their two varieties separate (for the most part) generation after generation by keeping seeds from plants that are similar to the variety they want and avoiding keeping seeds from plants that look different. Importing heirloom or open-pollinated seeds would “contaminate” the local varieties as much as the seeds from Monsanto. For more details on gene flow, check out Those naughty plants!

There are actually potential benefits of crossing the donated seeds with the local varieties (remember, there are no intellectual property restrictions with this donation). After an initial cross, a farmer could simply select the plants that do best in his or her microclimate. They would be gaining alleles for disease resistance, high yield, and other traits, while maintaining local alleles that make the plants uniquely suited for their location. Done right, this could result in high yielding locally adapted varieties.

What are hybrids, anyway?

A hybrid is simply a cross between two different plant varieties. The two varieties can be inbred lines or populations like open pollinated varieties. The reason why hybrids are used is a phenomenon called heterosis, or hybrid vigor. While the exact mechanisms of this phenomenon aren’t completely understood, its effects are striking! In maize, hybrids have been used since the 1920s. A classic maize hybrid is B73 x Mo17. B73 and Mo17 are divergent inbred lines, meaning that they have different sets of alleles for each gene in the maize genome. When crossed, the resulting plants are much stronger and have much higher yields than the inbreds alone.

Hybrid vigor: Corn lines B73 (left) and Mo17 (right) produce the hybrid F1 (center). From Iowa State University News Service.

Some people argue against hybrid seed by saying it has to be purchased every year, but this isn’t quite true. First, the seed from hybrids can be planted – there is no biological reason why they wouldn’t produce seeds that grow perfectly well. However, if you cross hybrid plants together, the resulting plants won’t be quite as good as that first generation hybrid, though they will likely be better than the original inbred lines. Second, farmers and gardeners are perfectly capable of producing their own hybrid seed, and some do, if they like a challenge. Most, however, let seed companies big and small do the work of keeping the inbred lines separate and producing the hybrid seed for farmers to buy.

Some people argue against hybrid seed by saying that it that it requires more inputs, but this isn’t quite true either. Seeds are seeds. That is an over-simplification, but a given seed no matter its genetics can be grown with high inputs or with no inputs at all. The difference is that the seed grown with fertilizer and pesticides will, on average, yield more than the seed with no inputs. The ability of a plant to respond to fertilizer can be changed with breeding, but that doesn’t mean you can’t grow a seed with high fertilizer response without inputs. Breeding specifically for low inputs can be done simply by selecting the best preforming plants under low input conditions – the breeding process remains the same. The specific corn hybrids donated have been tested under low input condtions, as mentioned by Manuel Rivas.

Some people argue against hybrid seed by saying that it that it is less nutritious, but this isn’t quite true either. It is true that most of the commercially available seed was bred for high yield without consideration for characteristics like taste and nutritional composition that are important to consumers. The reason for this is obvious – consumers don’t buy seed, farmers do. And farmers (particularly grain farmers, but fruit and vegetable farmers too) are paid for quantity not quality. This is not a characteristic of hybrids but of the system in general. Heirloom varieties are typically selected for taste, not yield, and taste is affected by nutrition. Gains in yield from breeding do suffer if selection for too many other characteristics are added, but it isn’t impossible, especially with the advent of precision breeding.

Toxic chemicals on the seeds?

Besides the confusion over hybrids, there has been quite a bit of confusion over the fungicides that protect the seeds. First, the Hatian Ministry of Agriculture was made aware of the fungicide, to which they responded: “The products listed are used everyday in Haitian agriculture and should pose no problem,” according to Between the Rows. The specific details were provided by Monsanto employee Mica:

The corn seeds were treated with Maxim XL, which is a Syngenta product. According to Syngenta, approximately 90 percent of U.S. corn seeds are treated with Maxim XL… It’s also used in Western Europe and Latin America.

Thiram, a Bayer Crop Science product, was used to treat the vegetable seeds. Thiram has been registered for use in the U.S. for more than 60 years and is used to treat approximately 1.3 billion pounds of seed annually. (Source: U.S. EPA)

It might seem strange to treat seeds with these chemicals, but it helps protect the seeds from being destroyed by fungus before they germinate. They are used safely by farmers all over the world. The fungicides also help prevent the spread of fungus on seeds from place to place – such as from the US to Haiti.

Reasons for seed treatment. North Dakota State Extension.

Marcia McMullen and Arthur Lamey, Extension Plant Pathologists at North Dakota State, provide three reasons to use fungicidal seed treatments:

1. to control soil-borne fungal disease organisms (pathogens) that cause seed rots, damping-off, seedling blights and root rot
2. to control fungal pathogens that are surface-borne on the seed, such as those that cause covered smuts of barley and oats, bunt of wheat, black point of cereal grains, and seed-borne safflower rust; and
3. to control internally seed-borne fungal pathogens such as the loose smut fungi of cereals.

Let the Farmers Decide

There is nothing inherently dangerous with the seeds being donated or with the WINNER program. Farmers may choose to purchase the seeds or not. Burning the seeds or demanding that the seeds be turned away just takes away options for farmers. I hope that the people calling for burning the seeds will stop and think about the consequences of their actions for those farmers who might want to try planting the donated seed and instead think of ways to help farmers who don’t want seed from Monsanto for whatever reason.

* Disclaimer: I do not have any personal or financial connection to Monsanto, I’m only writing in hopes of dispelling some confusion about things like hybrid seed that could ultimately have a negative effect on farmers in Haiti and other places. I had been avoiding writing this post but the confusion about what hybrids are and what they do just became too much to ignore!

While you’re thinking of blog to submit to the Guardian (perhaps Biofortified.org?), I hope you’ll take a moment to comment on this post with blogs you follow about plant biology, plant science, genetic engineering, genetics in general, and similar topics – and share why you like them. Your responses will help to create a Biofortified Blogroll page.

In Proposed US law to mandate GMOs?, I posted the actual text of the The Global Food Security Act of 2009, S.384, introduced by Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA), in response to authors of blog posts and petitions that didn’t quite seem to have read it before getting all excited about it.

The next big GMO scandal involves recommended changes to the Codex Alimentarius Commission of the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. All relevant documents have been posted by the Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL), apparently unknown to those who would have us up in alarm.

The Institute for Responsible Technology (founded by Jeffery Smith) wants us to pay attention to their Action Alert – Codex Conference (emphasis original):

Please send this URGENT message to US Government leaders to protect your right to know which foods are made from genetically modified organisms (GMOs)…

They must stop US negotiators at an international (Codex) conference from May 3-7, from pushing an agenda that could make it difficult for anyone, anywhere in the world to label foods as genetically modified (GM) food—or even make non-GMO claims on their product’s label.

A petition on CREDO Action Network is even more alarming (emphasis mine):

…the current U.S. draft position paper declares that mandatory labeling laws such as they have in Europe are “false, misleading or deceptive.” If the U.S. succeeds in writing the proposed Codex regulations, any attempts here in the U.S. to label foods as genetically engineered, whether voluntary or by law, would become far more difficult.

What’s actually “misleading or deceptive” is the way the US recommendations are presented by these two groups. Ironically, the US actually seems to be recommending most recently that nothing be changed at all, in Government Comments at Step 3 (pdf). The US recommendations, presented 3-7 May 2010, as “Proposed draft recommendations for the labelling of foods and food ingredients obtained through certain techniques of genetic modification/genetic engineering”, are as follows:

We strongly encourage CCFL to discontinue further discussion of the provisions in Appendix VII of ALINORM 09/32/22 so that the Committee may focus its resources on the agenda items dealing with the implementation of the WHO Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity, and Health, an agenda item of immense public health significance and directly related to the mandate of Codex—to protect the health of consumers.

Why would the US want the Codex Committee to stop working on plans to make rules for mandatory labeling of GMOs? In short, member countries have such different regulatory frameworks and such different ideas that it’s unlikely that any consensus will be reached. In fact, no consensus has been reached in over a decade of discussion on this topic, and by Codex rules, where there is no basis for consensus, discussion should end. This is laid out in full in the above referenced document. Other countries and some other groups put out Comments at Step 3, which you can find at the Codex Committee on Food Labeling website. Perhaps it is inappropriate for the US to propose that discussion be stopped, but stopping the discussion is far from being the same as banning labeling of GMOs.

Did the US ever propose that voluntary labels be prohibited? Nope. They did advocate that labels ”indicate that foods derived from GM/GE were not in any way different or less safe due to their method of production provided that they had undergone safety assessments consistent with relevant Codex guidelines.” This is consistent with other labeling requirements in the CODEX and other labeling sources. A voluntary label that meets this requirement would be similar to rBST labels in the US that state that milk from cows that have not been treated with rBST is no different than milk from cows that have been treated with rBST.

The Global Food Security Act of 2009, S.384 has a few clauses that have anti-biotech activists all worked up. What do the changes really mean? Is the US government really part of a Monsanto-led conspiracy to force the impoverished into a cycle of dependency on patented seed and pesticides?

The Pesticide Action Network of North America sums up their view of the situation in their newsletter:

After its introduction in the Senate a year ago, Bill Gates and Bill Clinton have been quietly pressing for this piece of legislation that aims to fight global hunger with one hand while orchestrating a giant taxpayer subsidy to pesticide and ag biotech companies with the other. The bill, also known as the Lugar-Casey Act — for Senators Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Robert Casey (D-PA) — would refocus aid programs on agricultural development, with a caveat: public funding of genetically engineered (GE) seeds is what this bill means by “agricultural development.”

I don’t know if PANNA actually read the Act, because there’s a lot in there about agricultural development that has nothing to do with genetic engineering, as you’ll see in this post.

Genetic engineering ≠ Corporations

One of the biggest arguments against improved seed, whether biotech or simply hybrid, is that it is developed by corporations. To be fair, this is often true in the United States. The US government decided decades ago to leave crop improvement to corporations. The USDA still does a little work in crop improvement, but this work doesn’t result in many released varieties.

It doesn’t have to be this way. In countries around the world, including Brazil, India, and China, much public funding goes into crop improvement. If you think that it’s dangerous to leave all seed improvement and production to a few companies, and if you want more public funding for crop improvement, then let your representatives know.

Ironically, the changes proposed in the Global Food Security Act of 2009 will lead to more public funding for crop improvement, genetically engineered and otherwise. It will also lead to funding of agricultural research in other countries, something that is very necessary if those countries are to ever stand on their own when it comes to food.

What the Act says

This is an amazing piece of legislation that has the potential to help a lot of people, so I hope you’ll take a moment to read the whole thing. I’m personally very excited about the funding for public agricultural research both in the US and in developing countries listed in Title III. I’m disappointed that it’s taking this long for the Act to be made into law.

In this post, I’ll just discuss Title II, where the controversial language appears. Titles I and III don’t mention biotechnology or any other specific farming or research methods, so they haven’t raised any controversy to my knowledge. Title II lists quite a few changes that most would argue are favorable for agriculture in developing nations.

Let’s actually look at the changes and try to determine what they really mean. Am I the only one who has noticed that the petitions and blog posts in uproar over the Act don’t actually show the Act or even link to it? It’s not that hard to find on websites such as Thomas. At the end of this post, you can find the relevant section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (pdf, pages 40-42) with the changes made in red, then the proposed changes as they appear in the Global Food Security Act of 2009 (pdf).

The first set of edits in Title II of the Global Food Security Act of 2009 add three additional goals to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961:

1. Find ways for impoverished people who don’t have access to agriculture to improve their economic situation, while providing those persons health and nutrition assistance.
2. Fund development and implementation of sustainable agricultural techniques that work under the stresses of climate change, including drought.
3. Improve nutrition of the most vulnerable people, specifically “children under the age of two years old, and pregnant or lactating women.”

Sounds good so far.

The second section allocates funds for all of the aid activities in the Foreign Assistance Act. In billions of US dollars: 0.75 for 2010, 1 for 2011, 1.5 for 2012, 2 for 2013, and 2.5 for 2014.

Sounds expensive, but it’s not much when put in the perspective of military spending (more than $650 billion, not including additional funds for current overseas activities).

On to the controversial part.

The current Act states that agricultural research under the Act will do the following:

1. Take needs of small farmers into account when determining research priorities.
2. Include research on factors affecting small farms including interplay between technological, institutional, economic, social, environmental, and cultural factors.
3. Use field tests to adapt research to local conditions – in other words, don’t develop something that works in one country and expect it to work in another country!
4. Produce results that can be disseminated to small farms (both info and technology) and that can actually be used on small farms.

The proposed changes would add one additional clause, requiring research to include “biotechnological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology.” Frankly, I don’t know why the authors enumerated any specific technologies or methods. They could have left out that last clause, still considered biotechnology as an option, and everyone would have been happy. However, Senator Lugar has seen the potential that biotechnology has to help people and wants to move that forward.

There are already examples of public-private partnerships that have been making great progress toward developing crops specifically for farmers in developing countries. Two of them were discussed by Marianne Bänziger, Director for CIMMYT’s Global Maize Program, at the Maize Genetics Conference in March: WEMA (water efficient maize for Africa) and IMAS (improved maize for African soils). Publicly funded flood tolerant rice is already out there helping farmers, with help from Biofortified editor Pam Ronald. What more could be accomplished with additional funds?

What the Act doesn’t say

The Act does not say “include genetic engineering to the exclusion of anything else”. It doesn’t even say “include biotechnology to the exclusion of anything else” (biotechnology includes marker assisted selection (pdf) as well as genetic engineering and other techniques). That means breeding remains a funded means of crop improvement, and leaves in the goal of improvement of farming methods as well. The Act specifically states that any biotech research will be appropriate to local environmental conditions, as well as taking needs of small farmers into account. That does leave out funding for any crop or method development that would be too expensive for small farmers to use, so royalty-free releases would presumably be required.

Looking at GM crops currently on the market, this excludes Roundup Ready crops because small farmers in impoverished countries often can’t afford Roundup and/or don’t have access to markets that carry pesticides. However, it includes Bt crops because they require no additional inputs and have been shown to be safe for people and safe for non-target organisms while reducing yield loss due to insect pests. It would also include traits that improve nutrition and environmental traits such as drought tolerance or salt tolerance. These are careful, thoughtful distinctions, ones that must be made before biotech is even considered, according to the Act.

While conspiracy theorists are happy to put words in Senator Lugar’s mouth, no where does the Act claim that genetic engineering is a silver bullet to solve the food crisis (on the contrary, the Act emphasizes small, locally adapted solutions – the opposite of a silver bullet). No where does the Act propose that seeds with biotech traits be forced on countries that do not want them (on the contrary, the Act aims to improve the economic situation of impoverished farmers, which obviously can’t be done by encouraging farmers to plant seed that they can’t sell). No where does the Act ask for short term technological fixes (on the contrary, the Act aims for long term self-sustainability for impoverished farmers and countries).    …you get the idea.

The language of the Act is clear

Farmers in developing countries need changes that will work for them and that will work long term. While most of us admire the great accomplishments of the Green Revolution, most of us know that those same strategies of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides can’t be used again. To truly help the farmers, we must work with them to develop appropriate farming improvements for their situation – exactly what this bill says.

Don’t want to take my word for it? Ask Senator Lugar. He’s listed his goals for the legislation in full on his website: Lugar Clarifies Food Security Bill for Colleagues (or see pdf in case the post has moved). In the Senator’s own words: “Hungry people are desperate people, and desperation often sows the seeds of conflict and extremism.” Not only do we have a moral imperative to help impoverished people, but it is in the interests of peace to help ensure that every person has the ability to feed themselves and their families.

He’s taken time to spell out why the biotech clause is in the Act:

The research would include work on the appropriate uses of GM technologies in different environments. While much research has already been done on the development of GM seeds, with profound benefits for agricultural productivity in developed countries, there is a dearth of research on its development and applicability in developing countries. Those countries may have environmental and other challenges that differ from those encountered in the United States. The bill advocates strengthening the local capacity of university and research institutions to find localized solutions to agricultural productivity and food security.

Without advances in technologies that are adaptive to local and regional environmental conditions, the world’s farmers will be hard pressed to meet projected demand of the nearly 9.2 billion people that will inhabit the planet by the year 2050. The development and dissemination of technology, whether it be traditional, biotechnological, or GM, is vital to raising both farm productivity and incomes of poor farmers. Further, without the gains in production per acre that can come from advanced technology, it is likely we will only be able to meet future food demand by greatly expanding the amount of land under cultivation, a development which would necessarily involve substantial forest destruction as well as environmental degradation. GM represents one important tool in this endeavor, and we must do the research to determine where and when it works best.

The bottom line is that a provision of the Lugar-Casey bill directs U.S. assistance in developing local technological solutions to advance agricultural productivity in countries suffering from chronic hunger. It does not require that these solutions be GM, but it does not preclude it, where appropriate.

Widespread support

Don’t believe me or the Senator? Take a look at the groups supporting the Act (pdf) - no less than 25 well-known NGOs that work with impoverished people and/or environmental issues, most of which have a global reach. ONE, a prominent organization that works against hunger and AIDS in Africa, is positively enthusiastic about this potentially historic Act. The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges has endorsed (pdf) the Act, likely due to it’s support for education and research. CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc.) applauds the Act’s support for women and girls. Oxfam urges people to tell their members of Congress to co-sponsor the Act. The Friends of the World Food Program call the Act an essential part of the Roadmap to End Global Hunger. Dr. Thomas Lovejoy of Population Action International and Jim Harkness of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy argue that it’s time to stand up for people who are most in need, especially now that the health care debate is over. (IATP supports the House version of this legislation in this editorial, not the Senate version.)

The Act has also done something that few pieces of legislation can anymore: inspire bi-partisan cooperation.The authors of the bill are a Republican and a Democrat, and they have the support of people from both parties in the House and in the Senate. For example, the House version of the Act was introduced by Representative Betty McCollum (D) along with Donald Payne (D) and Jo Ann Emerson (R).

Follow the money

Finally, let’s look closely at the authors of the bill. Are they being paid off by Monsanto to push this legislation?

In short, no. Looking at Senator Lugar’s campaign contributors at OpenSecrets.org, there’s a striking lack of any biotech company donors later than 2002, when Monsanto contributed $14,250. Senator Lugar does have some donors from agribusiness, such as Archer Daniels Midland which donated $8,000 in 2008 and $6,000 in 2010 – hardly enough to buy special legislation for nefarious purposes, and completely unsurprising considering that he is a Senator for Indiana. Senator Casey doesn’t have any contributions from Monsanto or agribusiness. Any conspiracy theories regarding the authors of the bill fall flat as soon as you look at the data.

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Let’s see this Act for what it really is – an honest effort to make real changes in the way the US aids poor farmers in impoverished countries. Contact your elected officials to let them know what you think about the Act.

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proposed changes to Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151a-1)

2151a. Agricultural development in rural areas

(a) Authorization to President to furnish assistance; appropriations

(1) In recognition of the fact that the great majority of the people of developing countries live in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture and agricultural-related pursuits for their livelihood, the President is authorized to furnish assistance, on such terms and conditions as he may determine, for agriculture, rural development, and nutrition—

(A) to alleviate starvation, hunger, and malnutrition;

(B) to expand significantly the provision of basic services to rural poor people to enhance their capacity for self-help; and

(C) to help create productive farm and off-farm employment in rural areas to provide a more viable economic base and enhance opportunities for improved incomes, living standards, and contributions by rural poor people to the economic and social development of their countries; and

(D) to expand the economic participation of people living in extreme poverty and those who lack access to agriculturally productive land, including through productive safety net programs and health and nutrition programs, and to integrate those living in extreme poverty into the economy;

(E) to support conservation farming and other sustainable agricultural techniques to respond to changing climatic conditions and water shortages; and

(F) to improve nutrition of vulnerable populations, such as children under the age of two years old, and pregnant or lactating women.

(2) There are authorized to be appropriated to the President for purposes of this section, in addition to funds otherwise available for such purposes, $760,000,000 for fiscal year 1986 and $760,000,000 for fiscal year 1987. Of these amounts, the President may use such amounts as he deems appropriate to carry out the provisions of section 316 of the International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1980. Amounts appropriated under this section are authorized to remain available until expended.

Authorization of Appropriations- There is authorized to be appropriated to the President to provide assistance under section 103 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151a) for the purpose of carrying out activities under this section, in addition to funds otherwise available for such purpose–

(1) $750,000,000 for fiscal year 2010; (2) $1,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2011; (3) $1,500,000,000 for fiscal year 2012; (4) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2013; and (5) $2,500,000,000 for fiscal year 2014.

*Note – I’m not sure where the above belongs, but it seems to fit well here.*

(3) Of the amounts authorized to be appropriated in paragraph (2) for the fiscal year 1987, not less than $2,000,000 shall be available only for the purpose of controlling and eradicating amblyomma variegatum (heartwater) in bovine animals in the Caribbean.

(b) Use of assistance primarily in aid of rural poor; multilateral infrastructure projects; forestry projects

(1) Assistance provided under this section shall be used primarily for activities which are specifically designed to increase the productivity and income of the rural poor, through such means as creation and strengthening of local institutions linked to the regional and national levels; organization of a system of financial institutions which provide both savings and credit services to the poor; stimulation of small, labor-intensive enterprises in rural towns; improvement of marketing facilities and systems; expansion of rural infrastructure and utilities such as farm-to-market roads, water management systems, land improvement, energy, and storage facilities; establishment of more equitable and more secure land tenure arrangements; and creation and strengthening of systems to provide other services and supplies needed by farmers, such as extension, research, training, fertilizer, water, forestry, soil conservation, and improved seed, in ways which assure access to them by small farmers.

(2) In circumstances where development of major infrastructure is necessary to achieve the objectives set forth in this section, assistance for that purpose should be furnished under this part in association with significant contributions from other countries working together in a multilateral framework. Infrastructure proj ects so assisted should be complemented by other measures to ensure that the benefits of the infrastructure reach the poor.

(3) The Congress recognizes that the accelerating loss of forests and tree cover in developing countries undermines and offsets efforts to improve agricultural production and nutrition and otherwise to meet the basic human needs of the poor. Deforestation results in increased flooding, reduction in water supply for agricultural capacity, loss of firewood and needed wood products, and loss of valuable plants and animals. In order to maintain and increase forest resources, the President is authorized to provide assistance under this section for forestry projects which are essential to fulfill the fundamental purposes of this section. Emphasis shall be given to community woodlots, agroforestry, reforestation, protection of watershed forests, and more effective forest management.

(c) Increased agricultural production in least developed countries

The Congress finds that the greatest potential for significantly expanding availability of food for people in rural areas and augmenting world food production at relatively low cost lies in increasing the productivity of small farmers who constitute a majority of the agricultural producers in developing countries. Increasing the emphasis on rural development and expanded food production in the poorest nations of the developing world is a matter of social justice and a principal element contributing to broadly based economic growth, as well as an important factor in alleviating inflation in the industrialized countries. In the allocation of funds under this section, special attention shall be given to increasing agricultural production in countries which have been designated as “least developed” by the United Nations General Assembly.

(d) Coordination with population planning and health programs

Assistance provided under this section shall also be used in coordination with programs carried out under section 2151b of this title to help improve nutrition of the people of developing countries through encouragement of increased production of crops with greater nutritional value; improvement of planning, research, and education with respect to nutrition, particularly with reference to improvement and expanded use of indigenously produced foodstuffs; and the undertaking of pilot or demonstration programs explicitly addressing the problem of malnutrition of poor and vulnerable people. In particular, the President is encouraged—

(1) to devise and carry out in partnership with developing countries a strategy for programs of nutrition and health improvement for mothers and children, including breast feeding; and

(2) to provide technical, financial, and material support to individuals or groups at the local level for such programs.

(e) Use of local currency proceeds from sales of commodities

Local currency proceeds from sales of commodities provided under the Food for Peace Act [7U.S.C. 1691 et seq.] which are owned by foreign governments shall be used whenever practicable to carry out the provisions of this section.

(f) National food security policies and programs; bilateral and multilateral assistance

The Congress finds that the efforts of developing countries to enhance their national food security deserves encouragement as a matter of United States development assistance policy. Measures complementary to assistance for expanding food production in developing countries are needed to help assure that food becomes increasingly available on a regular basis to the poor in such countries. Therefore, United States bilateral assistance under this chapter and the Food for Peace Act [7 U.S.C. 1691 et seq.], and United States participation in multilateral institutions, shall emphasize policies and programs which assist developing countries to increase their national food security by improving their food policies and management and by strengthening national food reserves, with particular concern for the needs of the poor, through measures encouraging domestic production, building national food reserves, expanding available storage facilities, reducing postharvest food losses, and improving food distribution.

(g) International Fund for Agricultural Development; participation and contributions; availability of appropriations

(1) In order to carry out the purposes of this section, the President may continue United States participation in and may make contributions to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

(2) Of the aggregate amount authorized to be appropriated to carry out subchapter I of this chapter, up to $50,000,000 for fiscal year 1986 and up to $50,000,000 for fiscal year 1987 may be made available, by appropriation or by transfer, for United States contributions to the second replenishment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

2151a–1. Agricultural research

Agricultural research carried out under this chapter shall

(1) take account of the special needs of small farmers in the determination of research priorities,

(2) include research on the interrelationships among technology, institutions, and economic, social, environmental, and cultural factors affecting small-farm agriculture, and

(3) make extensive use of field testing to adapt basic research to local conditions. Special emphasis shall be placed on disseminating research results to the farms on which they can be put to use, and especially on institutional and other arrangements needed to assure that small farmers have effective access to both new and existing improved technology., and

(4) include research on biotechnological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology.

Global Food Security Act of 2009, S.384

SEC. 201. AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, AND NUTRITION.

(a) Authority- Section 103(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151a(a)(1)) is amended–

(1) in subparagraph (B), by striking ‘; and’ and inserting a semicolon;

(2) in subparagraph (C), by striking the period at the end and inserting ‘; and’; and

(3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraphs:

‘(D) to expand the economic participation of people living in extreme poverty and those who lack access to agriculturally productive land, including through productive safety net programs and health and nutrition programs, and to integrate those living in extreme poverty into the economy;

‘(E) to support conservation farming and other sustainable agricultural techniques to respond to changing climatic conditions and water shortages; and

‘(F) to improve nutrition of vulnerable populations, such as children under the age of two years old, and pregnant or lactating women.’.

(b) Authorization of Appropriations- There is authorized to be appropriated to the President to provide assistance under section 103 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151a) for the purpose of carrying out activities under this section, in addition to funds otherwise available for such purpose–

(1) $750,000,000 for fiscal year 2010; (2) $1,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2011; (3) $1,500,000,000 for fiscal year 2012; (4) $2,000,000,000 for fiscal year 2013; and (5) $2,500,000,000 for fiscal year 2014.

Sec. 202. Agricultural Research.

Section 103A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151a-1) is amended in the first sentence–

(1) by striking ‘, and (3) make’ and inserting ‘, (3) make’; and

(2) by striking the period at the end and inserting ‘, and (4) include research on biotechnological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology.’.

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This week, one of Biofortified’s contributors is the subject. I hope you’ll check out Biotech is Not a Product.

While you can no longer find SEED Magazine on newsstands, they do have a strong web presence. Seed Media Group also publishes the extremely popular ScienceBlogs as well as the important tool Research Blogging.

The Spring 2010 entries have been narrowed down to eight finalists – one of which was submitted by yours truly. GMOs could render important antibiotics worthless is consistently one of Biofortified’s most read posts since it went up on March 15.

I hope you’ll read the entries and consider voting for any of these contributions from graduate students. Voting is open from April 1 to April 20. Each person can vote one time every day, using the button to the right of the post’s title. Click the banner below to see a list of all of the finalists.