It has come to my attention that you may be receiving letters regarding S. 384, the Global Food Security Act, introduced by Senator Casey and myself, that misrepresent one of its provisions. The bill, which was unanimously reported by the Foreign Relations Committee, would re-orient U.S. foreign assistance programs to focus on promoting food security and rural development in countries with large, chronically hungry populations. It is supported by a large number of organizations, including CARE, Oxfam, Bread for the World, ONE, and U.S. land grant colleges.
A small number of critics claim the bill would mandate that U.S. assistance be used to promote genetically modified (GM) agricultural technologies, and that U.S. food aid would be conditioned on recipient countries approving the use of GM products. These are gross misrepresentations that have no factual foundation.
Let me be clear. The bill does not require the use of GM technology by any farmers, implementing partners or government agencies. It does not condition the receipt of food aid on a recipient country’s adoption of GM. The use of any technology must ultimately be left to individual farmers based on their particular circumstances.
In fact, only one provision (Sec. 202) in the entire bill even mentions GM technology. The United States provides a small amount of funding for agricultural research activities at national and international research centers. The provision in question would highlight research on biotechnology, including GM, as eligible for U.S. assistance. The research would include work on the appropriate uses of GM technologies in different environments. While much research has already been done on the development of GM seeds, with profound benefits for agricultural productivity in developed countries, there is a dearth of research on its development and applicability in developing countries. Those countries may have environmental and other challenges that differ from those encountered in the United States. The bill advocates strengthening the local capacity of university and research institutions to find localized solutions to agricultural productivity and food security.
Without advances in technologies that are adaptive to local and regional environmental conditions, the world’s farmers will be hard pressed to meet projected demand of the nearly 9.2 billion people that will inhabit the planet by the year 2050. The development and dissemination of technology, whether it be traditional, biotechnological, or GM, is vital to raising both farm productivity and incomes of poor farmers. Further, without the gains in production per acre that can come from advanced technology, it is likely we will only be able to meet future food demand by greatly expanding the amount of land under cultivation, a development which would necessarily involve substantial forest destruction as well as environmental degradation. GM represents one important tool in this endeavor, and we must do the research to determine where and when it works best.
The bottom line is that a provision of the Lugar-Casey bill directs U.S. assistance in developing local technological solutions to advance agricultural productivity in countries suffering from chronic hunger. It does not require that these solutions be GM, but it does not preclude it, where appropriate.
I hope this information is helpful to you in responding to constituents who have been asked to contact you.
