Not preaching to the choir

Japan has been resistant to GMO technology, but world events could be softening opposition. At least this speech by U.S. Ambassador J. Thomas Schieffer to the 8th annual Life Sciences Summit in Tokyo on April 21 makes the case that Japan should embrace biotech agriculture. With talk of food security, he may be pushing the right buttons for the Japanese psyche.


A long excerpt:

Why then is there such public resistance to so many of the advances made by science in agriculture? Why are some people so afraid of things like genetically modified organisms, or GMOs as they are called? Why do some people fear products produced more by the latest science than products produced by the oldest superstitions? Is it because science is moving aster than our ability to explain it? Maybe. It seems to me that all of us whether we are in or out of government have a duty to defend science and common sense against irrationality and ignorance. Science has a much better chance of giving us what we need than myth and conspiracy theories. Biotechnology allows farmers to plant crops that will be less susceptible to disease, drought, and pests and more receptive to fertilizers and weed control. That will translate into higher yields, greater productivity, and safer products for consumers. What will be so bad about that? For the last decade, the use of biotech crops has been increasing at double digit rates. In 2007, over 114 million hectares of biotech crops were grown in 23 countries around the world. The United States is the biggest biotech producer, followed by Argentina and Brazil. To put it into perspective, the area planted in biotech crops last year was almost three times the size of the total land area of Japan. The number of farmers planting biotech crops has surged past 12 million. Some of these farmers are American, Australian, Canadian, and European, but more than 90% are small, resource-poor farmers from the developing world. The use of biotech crops is massive, growing, and transcends a country's level of economic development. Why are farmers around the world using this technology? Because it works. It delivers higher yielding crops that are easier on the environment and most of all are safe for human consumption. Farmers are also able to use these crops to increase the profitability of their farms, and improving the financial well-being of farmers is a policy most governments - including Japan - like to follow. It might surprise you to learn that Japan is already the world's largest importer of biotech crops, because millions of tons of biotech grain are imported for use as animal feed and for vegetable oil. But many Japanese consumers are reluctant to have biotech foods "on the end of their chopsticks." In 2004 and 2005, the U.S. Embassy participated in a study about Japanese views on agricultural biotechnology. The results were disappointing. We already knew that Japanese consumers are concerned about food safety, but we learned that they fear biotech foods for "unknown" long-term health effects. Many Japanese consumers said they did not feel that biotechnology offered them any benefits. Even more worrying was the fact that Japanese consumers in the study were unsure if the Japanese government itself was favorably disposed toward biotechnology. One factor that keeps biotech foods off Japanese shelves at the supermarket is the government requirement that they be labeled as "GMO." So far, no Japanese food manufacturer or retailer has been willing to test the market for GMO-labeled, consumer-ready food. We are hopeful that new products, like oils made from grains with health benefits, will change this. Biotech soybeans, for instance, enable more foods to be trans-fat free. Biotech soybeans are also rich in omega-3 oils which the human body cannot make. Studies show that a diet rich in omega-3 fats will reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. While these new products will have to be labeled as "GMO," we hope they will change consumer's existing views on biotechnology. Biotech crops also have the ability to combat malnutrition and disease. According to the World Health Organization, dietary deficiencies in vitamin A, iodine, iron, or zinc, can be major sources of disease and death. A lack of vitamin A alone causes up to 500,000 children a year to go blind. Consumption of biotech crops like "golden rice" could prevent that from happening. Right here in Japan a team of government, university, and company scientists has developed a rice that can act as a cholera vaccine. This kind of biotechnology could reduce suffering and save millions of lives. The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that the world's population will grow by 50% to 9 billion souls in 2042. This will represent a tripling of the earth's population in less than a century. Higher incomes and urbanization are leading to major changes in dietary consumption. The world food economy is increasingly driven by a shift toward livestock products. We are seeing huge increases in per-capita consumption of fish, meat, and milk products, especially in Asia. This is not bad; it is good. But we must plan for its ultimate impact. It is likely that an additional 1 billion metric tons of cereal grains will be needed annually by 2030, which is a 50% increase over production in 2000. World cereal demand will double by 2050 with developing countries in Asia accounting for half of the increase in global demand. How will all these billions be fed? Through technology. We must employ it to raise more food on less land, so that we will minimize our environmental footprint. Without an increase in farm productivity, an additional 1.6 billion hectares of arable land would have to come under the plow by 2050. If that happened, it would have catastrophic consequences for the environment and make a reduction in greenhouse gases almost unachievable. Feeding people without destroying the environment will be a challenge. Mankind needs all the tools that are available, and none are better than biotechnology. Japan already imports more than 60% of its caloric intake. Food security is and should be of great concern, but Japan is just one part of a much bigger Asian market. The longer Japanese consumers are uneasy about biotechnology, the longer they will face the possibility of being shut out of world markets, and that is the essence of what good food security is all about.