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16-04-2003, 09:44 AM

In article ,
writes:

You might find it interesting to do a bit of reading on the "Green
Revolution". Someone called Borlang or Borluag or something like that
received the Nobel Peace Prize for work he did on wheat while with Dupont
(or should that be Du Pont??). Unfortunately, his wonder wheat caused very
real problems down the track in the Third World countries he was intending
to help.

His wheat needed fertilisers that weren't readily available in the Third
World, it wasn't as resistant to local pests as the old varieties were and
the straw that had been used for both animal feeds and thatching was now too
short etc etc etc. In short for a while it was OK but very quickly it
became a real pig's ear. The farmers were caught in a spiral of needing to
buy seed, fertiliser and then sell to make a profit etc.

It was a good idea at the time but 25+ years down the track and it's a
different story but since we don't seem to learn from history then no doubt
we'll repeat it again. Our farmers are mostly screaming blue murder about
GM crops. The government isn't listening and I'm curious as to what
"retainers" might be being spread around by companies with GM interests.

I don't know where you heard this, but none of it is true. The only
reason the world hasn't been having repeated famines for the last 30
years was the development of superior strains of wheat, rice and corn by
plant biologists. Work continues on strains like golden rice and
balanced amino acid corn that drastically reduce dietary disease by
providing a better balanced nutrition. The green revolution tripled crop
yields around the world and saved untold billions of human lives. Norman
Borlaug richly deserved his Nobel prize. Borlaug never worked for Du
Pont. His work was initially funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Check out

http://reason.com/0004/fe.rb.billions.shtml

if you want to know the real story.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

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