Unethical Corporate Control of Crop Research

This is the kind of story that could turn someone who is generally accepting of GM crops (like me) into a skeptic — if not a skeptic about the crops themselves, at very least a skeptic about the companies that produce them.

Here's an important editorial from Scientific American: Do Seed Companies Control GM Crop Research?

(Scientists must ask corporations for permission before publishing independent research on genetically modified crops. That restriction must end)

Advances in agricultural technology—including, but not limited to, the genetic modification of food crops—have made fields more productive than ever. Farmers grow more crops and feed more people using less land. They are able to use fewer pesticides and to reduce the amount of tilling that leads to erosion. And within the next two years, agritech com panies plan to introduce advanced crops that are designed to survive heat waves and droughts, resilient characteristics that will become increasingly important in a world marked by a changing climate.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised. That is because agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers.

The Editorial's key point is hard to argue with:

Although we appreciate the need to protect the intellectual property rights that have spurred the investments into research and development that have led to agritech’s successes, we also believe food safety and environmental protection depend on making plant products available to regular scientific scrutiny. Agricultural technology companies should therefore immediately remove the restriction on research from their end-user agreements. Going forward, the EPA should also require, as a condition of approving the sale of new seeds, that independent researchers have unfettered access to all products currently on the market.

The whole editorial is worth reading, and sharing. Intellectual property is an important set of principles and protections; but the rationale for protection reaches its limits when it frustrates, without clear necessity, the conduct of honest, non-commercial scientific research aimed at the public good.

The Biofuel Trilemma: Energy, Environment & Food

By John Lorinc, for the NY Times: The Food, Energy and Environment ‘Trilemma’

At the 2009 Bio World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology, held in Montreal last week, industry players and scientists found themselves pondering two seemingly contradictory concerns.

One focused on how rapid advances in genetic engineering and biotechnology can expand the market for cellulosic ethanol and other “second-generation biofuels,” which are touted as low-emission substitutes for corn ethanol (itself a partial substitute for gasoline).

The other involved the problem of ensuring that exponential growth in the global biofuel market — which is projected to grow 12.3 percent a year through 2017, according to one recent study of the industry — will not hurt the environment and divert vast tracks of arable land needed for food or grain production....

Of course, use of the word "trilemma" implies that there's a choice to make — which implies, in turn, that someone has a choice to make. Just who is that? Can consumers exercise anything like effective choice in this this domain? Should governments?