Sir, - In your interview in the series "The Director's Chair" (The Irish Times, August 20th), Declan O'Brien, Director of the Animal and Plant Health Association, a lobbying group on behalf of 31 agri-chemical and veterinary drugs companies, states: "GM technology will be necessary to increase food volumes and produce crops on more marginal land to feed the rapidly expanding world population".
Some may deduce from this that GM technology is an answer to world hunger. However, before this debate goes much further it is important to get one fact absolutely straight: genetically modified crops are irrelevant to ending world hunger. Attempts by lobbyists and others to sell the idea of GM crops on the backs of the world's poor and hungry people in an attempt to deflect real fears and criticisms about this technology is the lobbyist's equivalent of saying: "Go on, hit me, and me with the child in me arms!" GM crops are about profits (which is presumably why this interview appears in the business section of the newspaper) and the pursuit of these particular profits is likely to decrease food security rather than offer a solution to world hunger.
There are an estimated 800 million people hungry in today's world. Food shortages are not the problem - there is more than enough food to feed everyone. The problem is poverty and injustice. In Brazil, which is the world's third largest food exporting country, over 30 million people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and an estimated 100,000 children die from hunger each year. For them the problem is unemployment, environmental degradation and access to land. Too many people simply do not have the means to grow food or the money to buy it.
The arrival of GM crops will do nothing to counter these basic causes of world hunger. On the contrary, experience of other technological approaches to food production, such as the Green Revolution of the 1960s, illustrates that with the advent of this new technology access to food for many millions will be further reduced. There will be a growing dependence on seed varieties that do not reproduce - the so-called "terminator technology" developed by Monsanto. These seeds must therefore be purchased annually together with the chemicals required to grow these crops.
One consequence of this process will be the loss of naturally occurring seed varieties, particularly those seeds which have evolved to withstand local climatic and pest problems over centuries. It is estimated that the world is losing over 1,000 seed varieties annually at present. More than anything else, this loss of variety will expose the world's population to the risk of food shortages.
The case against genetically modified crops, particularly in the developing world, is made in an excellent report published by Christian Aid: "Selling Suicide: farming, false promises and genetic engineering in developing countries". It is highly recommended, especially to those who may be subjected to Mr O'Brien's lobbying activities. In the meantime it will do us no harm here in Ireland to reflect on the last time we became dependent on a single crop and on the disastrous consequences. Is this the future we are now planting for generations to come? If so, the harvest will be just as devastating. - Yours, etc.,
Justin Kilcullen, Director, Trocaire, Booterstown Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.