The idea is not just cool from a what-if sci-fi standpoint. It’s the only way that humans can produce enough food in urban areas (where 60% of humans live, according to the VF website) without resorting to shipping food in from rural areas as we currently do. Vertical farming will make a varied diet available year round in cities with low input and little to no environmental degradation. It’s certainly far from the idyllic vision of farming that some people have, but it is not possible to feed the world that way (especially impossible without chemical heavy intensive farming) – unless everyone moves out of the cities and there is a massive population decrease.

“The Living Skyscraper: Farming the Urban Skyline” by Blake Kurasek, Graduate School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, image from the Vertical Farm Project.The VF website includes many concept drawings of exactly how vertical farms could be implemented. My favorite simply wraps tiers around skyscrapers. People can live and work inside this living insulation.

Vertical farming also has the potential to bring many people into agriculture. On the VF site, Dr. Despommier describes a visit to a 4th grade class in 2006. They sent him letters thanking him for his visit, and are just full of enthusiasm. How many of those children were inspired to pursue careers that don’t even yet exist? Hopefully many.

The idea of vertical farms is dear to my heart. Growing up in the heart of Tampa, Florida didn’t give me many opportunities to interact with agriculture. However, I did get to go to Epcot in Orlando pretty frequently. My favorite part of the park was and still is The Land, particularly the Living with the Land ride. The ride takes you through different ecosystems around the world before showing you what I think is the masterpiece of Epcot: a massive hydroponic greenhouse. One of the best parts of my honeymoon was a behind the scenes tour of the greenhouses, research labs, and aquaculture tanks. All this talk of Epcot reminds me that I really should try to apply for an internship as a research scientist there (believe it or not, they have a few), and attempt to fulfil a childhood dream.

h/t Drake Larsen via the ISU Sus Ag mailing list

An elegant example was prepared by Jason Haegle, an undergraduate at Iowa State under distinguished professor Peter Peterson. As described in The Flow of Maize Pollen in a Designed Field Plot, Jason planted purple corn surrounded by yellow corn. He planted the rows 0.76 meters apart (much wider than normal) to eliminate any effect of plant density. He simply counted the purple kernels on the ears in the yellow corn fields to determine how much and how far the pollen spread. Yellow corn plants that were closest to the purple corn of course had the most purple kernels. Three rows into the yellow corn, numbers of purple kernels (thus amounts of pollen from those plants) dropped dramatically. Other studies on maize pollen flow agree that the majority of pollen stays near the plot. As Jason says in his paper, this is likely because maize pollen is large and heavy compared to pollen from other grasses.

If the goal is to avoid pollen spread and thus gene flow from cultivated to wild varieties or from one cultivated variety to another, there are several precautions that a farmer can take. First, planting of barrier rows around the variety one wishes to contain will “soak up” most of the pollen. Second, the farmer can choose plants that are early or late flowering, so that pollen shed will not coincide with the fertile period of nearby plants. Third, plants with a low level of outcrossing (natural selfer) could be chosen. Fourth, mechanical means such as removing the pollen producing parts of the plant can be used. These options apply to all crops, not just maize. Feel free to let me know if there are more options that I’ve haven’t mentioned here! Now, even with these precautions, it is possible for a few pollen grains to stray.

If you are very concerned with pollen spread, the pollen could be made sterile through natural or technological methods. The natural method would be to use a male sterile line. Despite the rather obvious evolutionary disadvantage, plant breeders have been able to maintain this trait. The technological method is of course terminator genes. There are a few very different reasons why plants like this would be beneficial: making hybrid seed, protection of intellectual property, containment of transgenic traits, and protecting the environment from pollen spread.

Phillip McClean of ND State has a clear explanation of how the male sterile trait is used in seed production. In order to make hybrid seed in maize, the tassel (pollen producing part) must be removed from the female parent or “she” will just fertilize herself (each corn plant has both male and female parts). Some people realized that they could just use male sterile lines to make the hybrids, eliminating the need for de-tasseling. Hybrids are far superior to their parents due to heterosis (hybrid vigor). Seed for maize, rice, soy, and more are often sold as hybrids because they produce better yields and have other advantageous characteristics.

The seed provides a benefit to the farmer, but does not breed true. If the farmer saves and replants the seed, the resulting plants will be completely different from the parents. In other words, farmers who plant hybrid seed either have to buy it every year or invest in the large amounts of time, space, and money that it takes to do it on their own. Alternatively, the farmer can plant non-hybrid or open pollinated varieties. I’ll follow up with a post on the pros and cons of hybrid and specialized seed so this post can stay on topic.

Seed companies can afford to develop new lines and new hybrids because they sell seed year after year (note that the seed industry is starting to provide poor farmers with superior seed at little or no cost such that licensing doesn’t affect those who most need the seed). With genetically engineered seed, the trait of interest can be passed to other plants, so the farmer could save seed and retain the trait (either purposefully or accidentally), without paying for it. Saving seed that is protected under intellectual property law is a crime without the proper licensing agreements (similar to how music is protected). For an in depth discussion on why transgenic traits (and some non-biotech crops as well) are considered IP, please see ISU Bioethics Professor Clark Wolf’s discussion of the origins of plant IP. The idea that any unit of life, even a gene, could be patented is strange and seems inherently unethical. However, the way capitalism works is that it rewards innovators. Without monetary reward, there is no impetus to innovate (consider the problem of not enough research into malaria medicine while there are multiple drugs for erectile dysfunction). If we don’t want to depend on corporations for development, much more public and private money must be spent (such as with the Gates Foundation funding malaria research and the Chinese government funding research into improved rice varieties). The investment of seed development (transgenic or traditional) is high, and has a unique problem not faced by any other industry – the product can reproduce itself!

Ideally, patents would be on certain applications, not on the genes or plants themselves, but this is a legislation problem that has nothing to do with science. Terminator seed is one example of a proposed way to solve the intellectual property problem that incidentally has a few other benefits. Terminator seed is widely misunderstood. The name makes it sound far scarier than it is. Seriously, there are no seeds shooting guns at bystander seeds, killing all in their path. The technology is actually called “Genetic Use Restriction Technology” or GURT. The particular system in question is just one of many that can result in sterile seeds. The benefits include protecting a seed company’s’ intellectual property rights and preventing biotech crops from growing where they are unwanted (read: so as to eliminate outcrossing with native plants or organic crops).

There is one op-ed in particular that I’ve seen tossed around the web. It appeared in The Guardian on 22 May, written by Sol Oyuela of Progressio (a Catholic charity that claims to focus on poverty but has been less than progressive, despite the name). Sol states in his Blogger profile that he has a Master’s degree, but doesn’t feel the need to tell us what the degree is in. Of course, I have quite a few problems with his statements.

As the world grapples with the impact of global food shortages (Six million Ethiopian children at risk of malnutrition, May 21), the livelihoods of 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest farmers who rely on harvesting seeds from one crop for sowing the next season is under threat from biotech companies which are pushing to commercialise “terminator” technology – genetic engineering that results in plants producing sterile seeds. The advent of these so-called suicide seeds represent an insidious attempt to privatise plant life – and force poor families in developing countries to buy new seeds each year from the large companies that control the $19bn global seed market.

A global ban on terminator technology struck eight years ago is now under threat from a powerful alliance of biotech companies and countries with vested interests. They argue terminator technology should be considered on a case-by-case basis, thereby undermining the blanket moratorium. We fear the ban will once again come under pressure at this week’s UN summit on the convention on biological diversity in Bonn.

Biotech companies’ claims that terminator technology will prevent contamination between GM and non-GM crops are hotly contested, yet the EU and, by implication, British taxpayers are contributing to the development of the technology through a £3.4m EU research project investigating ways that seeds can be brought back to life with chemicals. In the developing world, small-scale farming is how millions of families survive. It is vital that at the Bonn summit this month the UK government strongly supports the continuing global ban on terminator technology.

First, terminator seed does not change the ability of farmers to sow seed they grew themselves. It is important to remember that hybrid seed already must be purchased every year. Farmers are still welcome to save seed that isn’t protected or to develop new varieties on their own. Poor farmers may be able to receive improved seed at reduced cost, as I stated before. In other words, the terminator trait doesn’t actually change anything. On the Progression site, Sol expands on the ideas in his letter, telling us that:

If commercialised, Terminator would put an end to the practice of seed-saving, which is essential to 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest farmers who save and re-plant seeds from one year to the next to feed their families and earn a living. What makes Terminator different from other genetically modified seeds is the fact that it would:

• Force farmers to buy new seed from large companies that control a global seed market worth US$19.6 billion.
• Further jeopardise the food security of the world’s poorest communities that are already struggling to cope with rising food prices.
• Reduce biodiversity by forcing farmers to abandon local seed varieties in favour of commercial seeds.
• Make farmers more vulnerable to climate change by forcing them to use commercial seed rather than locally adapted varieties, which are far more resilient to unpredictable weather patterns.

There could very well be factors that I’m not aware of, but as of this moment, I think these statements are a complete lie. We can’t have a healthy debate about lies, and are reduced to a nuh-uh battle that helps no one, least of all the 1.4 billion poor farmers or the 6 million starving Ethiopian children Sol speaks of. Seriously, guy, please step into reality and then we can talk about it. If terminator seeds are available on the market tomorrow, how does that change what farmer does with the seeds in his hand today? The addition of terminator seeds to the market won’t change the choices farmers have of what seeds to buy or not buy, has nothing to do with food prices, and doesn’t force the farmers to abandon seeds they already have.

Plant life is already privatized to some degree in that patents on either genes, plants, use of plants are considered valid by many countries. As I stated before, this is necessary to a point, or we would have no improved crops at all due to the huge cost of development (biotech or not) unless we were willing to spend a lot more tax money on agriculture. Some people beleive that we would be better off without improved crops – but the increases in yield alone that can be achieved through hybrids can not be denied (even without the addition of fertilizer). If the ban on GURTs was lifted to allow a case-by-case approval (as if anything is getting approved in Europe anyway), the genes would not suddenly appear in every seed on the planet. It would be used judiciously by the seed companies for certain specialty crops. It wouldn’t be used in all new seed for the simple reason that it’s more expensive, as it takes time and money to breed the genes into a given line and it takes chemicals to “awaken” the seed.

Even though Sol and other opponents of GURTs seeds might not come out and say it, the real reason (in my opinion) that they oppose the technology is that it might open the door to production of industrial compounds and other products in crops. These types of genetically engineered crops can not be used with out some very strong safety devices, and some version of GURT might provide that safety (in conjunction with other methods of containment). The actual report given to the Convention on Biological Diversity (why not just call it Convention on Biodiversity?) by EcoNexus and the Federation of German Scientists is a bit more lucid than that of Progressio. It’s long but interesting, although I don’t think it’s right for the CBD to only consider a report written by an openly anti-biotech and anti-corporate organization. I mean, a little peer review and unbiased science would be nice. So would a few less uses of “e.g.” in the text.

Anyway, regardless of its faults, the report has a point: the big problem with terminator technology (as created by Delta and Land) is that the pollen is still fertile. So, even if other pollen containment strategies are used, some pollen will get out, making unwanted fertilizations. The resulting seed would be sterile, so it doesn’t matter, but theoretically a large amount of the pollen could fertilize a nearby field, possibly ruining a farmer’s chances to save seed (and possibly contaminating the crop with a non-edible protein). It could also theoretically fertilize wild relatives of the crop, possibly decreasing biodiversity by shrinking the gene pool. I wholeheartedly agree with the authors on this point. However, the problem wouldn’t continue beyond this point because the genes will effectively delete themselves from the population – unless there was a mutation in one or more of the involved genes.

The other problems with this particular GURT, as described in the report, have to do with mutations, silencing, and segregation. It is true that mutation or silencing could disable one or more of the genes, but we do have to remember that this would happen at a very low frequency, and would likely be noticed before the new version of the gene was passed to many other plants. I imagine that the crops containing the GURT would be rotated with a different crop so that it would be easy to see and remove volunteers. It is possible that the transgene and the three genes in this GURT version could segregate away from each other if a diverse population of plants were open pollinated. However, I doubt that the plants would be a diverse population – instead I’d imagine that the company selling the GURT protected seed would be selling inbred or hybrid plants that are homozygous for the necessary genes.

Surely, if they were to go to the trouble of using the technology, they’d ensure that it was as stable as possible. There is also at least one way to avoid the problem of segregation and to increase the stability of all involved genes: the mini-chromosome. Just in case anyone from Monsanto or Syngenta is listening, I think the best course would be to scrap this version of terminator, and look for something much closer to male sterility. It just makes more sense. Occam’s Razor, don’t cha know. Oh, and if this type of GURT is to be pursued, please try to find some more creative activators and repressors besides antibiotics and steroids.

The United States has the world’s most extensive history of using GE crops and one of the world’s best continentalscale programs in environmental monitoring. Combining these two sources of information
provides an opportunity to lead the world in identifying agricultural pathways for the future that best serve people and the environment. Providing scientists access to data on GE crop use at the county scale is a small and relatively inexpensive step with enormous scientific and public benefits.

** I don’t know if it’s legal for me to post a link to the pdf here. If you know the rules, please fill me in!

[A]rsenic levels in the grain of different varieties of rice in Bangladesh were as high as 1.8 parts per million, compared to levels of just 0.05 parts per million in Europe and the US. Contamination was even greater in leafy vegetables – in amaranthus and spinach, arsenic content can be double or triple the levels found in rice. For drinking water, WHO recommends a maximum arsenic level of 0.01 parts per million, which indicates that for some people, staple food crops such as rice may be an important source of exposure to arsenic.

Until now, the farmers essentially have three options: leave the fields fallow, plant rice and hope it doesn’t have too much arsenic, or attempt to plant a crop that doesn’t need as much water.
Om Parkash (photo and story from Newswise) of the University of Massachusetts Amherst primarily works on bioremediation, which aims to remove pollutants from the soil by binding it up in plants. His recent work branches into the opposite direction, using genetic engineering to produce rice plants that take up less As. The work is in the process of patenting, so technical details are scarce. For now, I’ll have to be content with the following:

“By increasing the activity of certain genes, we can create strains of rice that are highly resistant to arsenic and other toxic metals,” says Parkash, a professor of plant, soil and insect sciences. “Rice plants modified in this way accumulate several-fold less arsenic in their above-ground tissues, and produce six to seven times more biomass, making the rice safer to eat and more productive.” This could help alleviate the current world-wide rice shortage.

I’m really looking forward to learning more about the genetics, and hope that Dr. Parkash is able to move forward with this exciting crop improvement.
While As is actually a necessary mineral in small amounts and only becomes dangerous to health when consumed in high levels (as in Bangladesh), decreasing As in the food supply is definitely a worthy cause. Dr. Parkash says that As can accumulate in all parts of the rice plant, including grain and straw. High As levels in rice not only affect people, but can sicken animals who eat the straw and contaminate their meat (think bioaccumulation). See GreenFacts for a good summary of arsenic as it relates to human health and the environment (incidentally, they also have some of the most levelheaded information on GM crops that I’ve ever seen).
Other recently published work on arsenic levels in rice by Yamily Zavala and John Duxbury of Cornell was reported in the 2 May 2008 ISAAA Crop Biotech Update. For a summary of the articles, see the press release from the American Chemical Society. Disclosure: I wasn’t able to access these two articles themselves as ISU’s library site is down while I write this.
In Arsenic in Rice: I. Estimating Normal Levels of Total Arsenic in Rice Grain, they showed that mean As concentrations in samples of commercial rice in Europe and the US (0.198 mg/kg) were higher than in samples from Asia (0.07 mg/kg). The concentrations varied greatly by region, but not by farming method. Their data confirmed that irrigation with As contaminated groundwater in Bangladesh is correlated with higher As concentrations in grain. In the US, where groundwater is not contaminated with As, the authors suggest that historical contamination of soil is a likely cause. Note: mg/kg and ppm are equivalent units.
In Arsenic in Rice: II. Arsenic Speciation in USA Grain and Implications for Human Health, they showed that the As in some rice varieties accumulates in a less toxic form than inorganic As (inorganic = molecules do not contain carbon). Arsenic in rice grown in the US is bound into mostly into dimethyl arsinic acid (DMA), which . This data is in agreement with previous studies done by Andrew Meharg of the University of Aberdeen in the UK. There is evidence that DMA is safer than inorganic As, which means that US rice may be safer than European or Asian rice. The authors hypothesize that 30 years of breeding in the US for straighthead disorder resistant rice could have caused US varieties to acquire this As metabolic pathway.
Huge phenotypic variance is present in rice grains across varieties. It’s easy to imagine that metabolic pathways vary widely from variety to variety as well.

Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.”

The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

Ten thousand miles separate the mill’s hushed rows of oversized silos and sheds — beige, gray and now empty — from the riotous streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but a widening global crisis unites them.

The collapse of Australia’s rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

The article also makes the very real connection between the rice shortages and global warming (although I would have liked some links):

The drought’s effect on rice has produced the greatest impact on the rest of the world, so far. It is one factor contributing to skyrocketing prices, and many scientists believe it is among the earliest signs that a warming planet is starting to affect food production.

It is difficult to definitely link short-term changes in weather to long-term climate change, but the unusually severe drought is consistent with what climatologists predict will be a problem of increasing frequency.

Prices for basic food supplies such as rice, wheat and corn have skyrocketed in recent months, driven by a complex set of factors including sharply rising fuel prices, droughts in key food-producing countries, ballooning demand in emerging nations such as China and India, and the diversion of some crops to produce biofuels.

The factors are indeed complex, and Sullivan presents them approximately in order of importance. Sullivan quotes Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP):

Sheeran said rising fuel and fertilizer prices were adding to the misery. She said she recently returned from a trip to Kenya’s Rift Valley, where the cost of fertilizer has climbed 135 percent since December.

That increase, along with rising prices for seed and diesel, led farmers to plant only one-third the crops they planted last year — a pattern being repeated around the world, she said.

“Farmers have no access to credit, so when prices go up, they can’t afford to plant,” she said, urging governments, particularly in developing nations, to invest more in programs to support domestic agriculture.

Indeed, the problems originate in bad government policies.
Although Sheeran didn’t even mention biofuels, Sullivan chooses to conclude:

The increasing use of crops to produce biofuels has been criticized as contributing to food shortages. While Britain and the European Union have called for greater use of biofuels, Brown said Tuesday that “we need to look closely at the impact on food prices and the environment.”

“If our U.K. review shows that we need to change our approach, we will also push for change in E.U. biofuels targets,” he said.

Even if some percentage of the increase of food prices can be attributed to biofuel policies in the EU and US, there are far greater problems that people like Norm Borlaug have been trying to bring to people’s attention for decades.
We’ve (as in the developed world) been giving food aid instead of helping countries teach their people the best ways to farm. We’ve spent our time banning technologies that could help people farm in desserts and flood plains. More recently, people in the developed world haven’t considered that rising fuel prices may affect more than their price at the gas station.
Just in case any one misreads this – my horror at people dying from hunger is as great as anyone’s. Hence, my dedication to improve the nutritional quality of crops through genetic engineering. I just don’t think it’s appropriate to misplace the origins of the food shortage. If we (as in everyone on earth) allow ourselves to focus on an incorrect cause, the crisis won’t end. Instead, we need to be levelheaded and acknowledge the true causes so we can work as quickly as possible to alleviate them.
There will be additional consequences from the total rejection of biofuels. While seed based biofuels are likely not the best answer to our liquid energy problems, they are a good stepping stone to biofuels made from things like biomass (especially things like leftover stalks), waste, and algae. Condemning biofuels now will cause us to loose all the progress that’s been made, cause scientists to loose the funding that they need to make things like cellulosic ethanol possible.

One of the most exciting parts of the WEMA (Water Efficient Maize for Africa) project is that it pulls in such a diverse group – including research entities from the participating countries, the well known non-profit CIMMYT, and the corporations Monsanto and BASF.

In this project, the corporations will not charge any royalties to small scale farmers. I’m assuming they plan to make their profits from large farmers in the developed world that are now or will soon be experiencing destructive droughts, such as Australia. Clearing up licensing issues before a project begins seems to be the best course, especially if we consider the fate of Golden Rice. This ensures that the people who most need the technology will be able to afford it, and that protracted legal battles will be avoided.

It’s easy to hate Monsanto at times (especially if you are anti-establishment), but it seems that the company is trying to be a better global citizen, if not for any other reason than to increase their potential customer pool. Who, besides Monsanto and a handful of other biotech companies, has the resources to conduct the research and produce desperately needed varieties like WEMA? Non-profits and government programs will never be able to do it alone.

Monsanto has information about the WEMA project on their website, including this telling photo with the caption: “Field trial of corn with the drought tolerant gene (on right) and control hybrid (on left). Note the greater size and healthier structure of the drought tolerant corn.”

[AATF] today announced a public-private partnership to develop drought-tolerant maize varieties for Africa. The partnership, known as Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA), was formed in response to a growing call by African farmers, leaders, and scientists to address the devastating effects of drought on small-scale farmers and their families. Frequent drought leads to crop failure, hunger, and poverty. Climate change will only worsen the problem.

AATF announced the effort at the end of a two-day planning meeting that included representatives from each of the countries participating in the project: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. The partners will use marker-assisted breeding and biotechnology to develop African maize varieties with the long-term goal of making drought-tolerant maize available royalty-free to African small-scale farmers. The benefits and safety of these maize varieties will be assessed by national authorities according to the regulatory requirements in each country.

This partnership fits well with the AATF mandate of facilitating innovative public/private partnerships that bring to smallholder farmers in Africa the tools needed to increase productivity for better food and income security,’ Said Mpoko Bokanga, Executive Director AATF.

AATF will work with the non-profit International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); the private agricultural company, Monsanto; and the national agricultural research systems in the participating countries. The new drought-tolerance technologies have already been licensed without charge to AATF so they can be developed, tested, and eventually distributed to African seed companies through AATF without royalty and made available to smallholder farmers.

Bokanga added that the project will involve local institutions, both public and private, and in the process expand their capacity and experience in crop breeding, biotechnology, and biosafety.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation contributed a total of $47 million to this effort.

The Director General of the National Agricultural Research Organisation of Uganda Dr. Dennis Kyetere presided over the official announcement of the initiative and said that the project will help address drought and contribute to food security in Africa.

‘Drought is a source of suffering and food insecurity for many people in Uganda and it is recognised as a challenge by the government. Drought causes up to 100 percent crop failure in Uganda in some instances’, said Dr. Kyetere.

Africa is a drought-prone continent, making farming risky for millions of small-scale farmers who rely on rainfall to water their crops. Maize is the most widely grown staple crop in Africa: more than 300 million Africans depend on it as their main food source. It is severely affected by frequent drought.

In the next five years, the partnership will develop the new maize varieties, incorporating the best drought-tolerance technologies available internationally. CIMMYT will provide conventionally developed drought tolerant high-yielding maize varieties that are adapted to African conditions and expertise in conventional breeding and testing for drought tolerance. Monsanto will provide proprietary germplasm, advanced breeding tools and expertise. Additionally, Monsanto and BASF will provide drought-tolerance transgenes that they have developed through their collaboration. These contributions will be provided without royalty. The national agricultural research systems, farmers’ groups, and seed companies participating in the project will contribute their expertise in breeding, regulatory issues and will be responsible for country-specific implementation including project governance, testing, germplasm evaluation, seed production and distribution.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded an independent program at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (University of Toronto) to assess and monitor social, cultural, ethical and commercial issues related to the WEMA Project. The independent organization will conduct annual audits of WEMA and serve as an additional communication channel for stakeholders.

According to eminent scientist Professor Calestous Juma, who is the Director of the Science, Technology and Globalisation Project at Harvard University, the WEMA project is a powerful signal of the relevance of biotechnology to African agriculture.

The collaboration between CIMMYT and national agricultural research systems has already yielded excellent gains in drought tolerance through conventional breeding. The partners in the WEMA project expect the combination of advanced breeding and biotechnology to bring even greater gains. The partners estimate that the maize products developed over the next 10 years could increase yields by 20 to 35 percent under moderate drought, compared to current varieties. This increase would translate into about two million additional tons of food during drought years in the participating countries, meaning 14 to 21 million people would have more to eat and sell.

The first conventional varieties developed by WEMA could be available after six to seven years of research and development. The transgenic drought-tolerant maize hybrids will be available in about ten years.

Risk of crop failure from drought is one of the primary reasons why small-scale farmers in Africa do not adopt improved farming practices. A more reliable harvest could give farmers the confidence to improve their techniques. Good soil health, improved training and support, pest and disease management, and access to markets to sell their surplus are all necessary for small-scale farmers to boost their yields and incomes. To date, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested more than $660 million as part of a broad agricultural development strategy that includes efforts in all of these areas so small-scale farmers could have access to the tools and opportunities they need to build better lives.

1. Biotech has increased farm incomes (up $27 billion since 1996) and decreased pesticide use (down 7% since 1996, or 493 million pounds less).
2. Glycophosphate is a far lesser evil than most pesticides. An added benefit is that RoundUp Ready crops have increased use of low- or no-tillage farming, which improves soil fertility (and happens to sequester carbon, as well).
3. Weeds would become resistant to herbicides eventually, regardless of biotech use. That’s evolution for you.

Then, there are the big two: arguments against biotech that are false because they were actually caused by anti-biotech activists. I’m very glad to see that I’m not the only one who believes this to be true.

If few new biotech crops have yet to make it to the tables of consumers, FOE can take a good bit of the credit. FOE and other ideological environmentalists have campaigned tirelessly to block the development and spread of new beneficial biotech crop traits. FOE does its best to stop biotech in its tracks and then turns around to assert that researchers have developed nothing new.

And finally, FOE complains that biotech seeds are monopolized by a few large companies. Again, FOE activists should look in the mirror to find the culprits behind this industry consolidation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the number of startup and well-established seed companies that aimed to develop agricultural biotech exploded. But, as we’ve seen, crop biotech ran into a buzz saw of environmentalist opposition, especially in Europe. Consequently, …small crop biotech companies withered and the industry consolidated into fairly large companies.