Henry I. Miller, physician, molecular biologist and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, proposes “more crop for the drop” in a Los Angeles Times op-ed today, saying:

“America’s politicians and government officials have been slow to grasp the importance of societal resilience — the ability to recover from or adapt to adversity. Sufficient resilience can minimize the risks of major, debilitating disruptions — whether they be economic ones, such as the current recession, or unavoidable natural disasters.”

He uses coping with drought as an example of how science, technology and planning can ease environmental effects if policymakers and regulations permit it:

“Gene-splicing, sometimes called genetic modification, offers plant breeders the tools to make old crop plants do spectacular new things. In the United States and two dozen other countries, farmers are using gene-spliced crop varieties to produce higher yields, with lower inputs and reduced environmental impact.”

Miller argues that cumbersome government regulation raises costs and limits yield production:

“Unscientific and overly burdensome regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in this country — and by national regulators and the United Nations elsewhere — has raised the cost of producing new plant varieties and kept potentially important crops off the market. This deeply entrenched, discriminatory and excessive regulation — which flies in the face of scientific consensus that gene-splicing is basically an extension of earlier crop improvement methods — adds tens of millions of dollars to the development costs of new gene-spliced crop varieties. Higher costs and the endless controversy translate to fewer products in the pipeline and fewer companies competing to make them. Less competition means higher prices.”

“If individually and collectively we are to meet economic, environmental and public health challenges, we need plenty of options and opportunities for innovation — and the wealth to pursue them. In society, as in evolutionary biology, survival demands resilience. But in large and small ways, unimaginative, shortsighted politicians and venal activists have conspired to limit our options, constrain economic growth and make real solutions elusive.”