Posted on 10/14/2005 6:12:07 AM PDT by OESY
The past 50 years have been the most productive period in global agricultural history, leading to the greatest reduction in hunger the world has ever seen. The Green Revolution, as this period came to be known in the developing world, has kept more than one billion people from hunger, starvation, and even death.
Many factors contributed to the Green Revolution. The doubling of the global area under irrigation was certainly important. But at the core was the development and application of new high-yielding, disease- and insect-resistant seeds, new products to restore soil fertility and control pests, and a succession of agricultural machines to ease drudgery and speed everything from planting to harvesting....
However, agricultural science is increasingly under attack by groups and individuals who, for political rather than scientific reasons, are campaigning to limit advances, especially in new fields such as genetic modification (GM) through biotechnology. Despite this opposition, it is likely that 250 million acres will be planted to GM crops in 2005. Most of this acreage is in the industrialized world, although the area in middle-income developing countries is expanding rapidly. However, the debate over biotechnology in the industrialized countries continues to impede its acceptance in most poor, food-insecure countries.
More than half of the world's 800 million hungry people are small-scale farmers who cultivate marginal lands. New science and biotechnology have the power to address the agro-climatic extremes. Their use lies at the core of extending the Green Revolution to these difficult farming areas. Because there are so many hungry and suffering people, particularly in Africa, attacks on science and biotechnology are especially pernicious. Africa is facing a pandemic scourge of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, a 30-year period of continuous degradation in soil fertility, frequent droughts and a burgeoning population....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I still can't believe this commie was POTUS.
You mean warming isn't bad? I thought it was supposed to kill us all!
Gerald Ford. Now there is a shining example of how an ex-president should behave, at least lately.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
So, Carter is campaigning to get DDT back into use? No?
What a pathetic man.
Organic preference does not mean genetic engineering......or does it?
Organic preference does not mean genetic engineering.
If Jimmah's fer it, ah'm agin it.
Gee, if only Zimbabwe knew about this. Then they wouldn't have to suffer the effects of the current devastating and inexplicable drought.
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