“Often lost in the debate about GMOs is the need for poor farmers to have choices in the face of hard conditions.”

With those words, the world’s greatest philanthropist and one of its richest men, Bill Gates, reminded his more than 10 million Twitter followers that using agricultural biotechnology is a choice that poor farmers around the world should be able to make. It’s a choice that some countries have chosen to deny to their farmers, unfortunately for political reasons rather than scientific ones.

Gates was calling attention to an article on the Gates Foundation blog by Sam Dryden, director of the foundation’s agricultural development team. A native of Kentucky, Dryden has worked all over the world and now oversees effort to help millions of the world’s poorest farming families raise their productivity and incomes.

“What is so often missed in the debate about GMOs is choice,” Dryden pointed out. “The choice for a poor farmer to consider planting a maize crop which could cope with droughts that are becoming ever more frequent; the choice to grow rice that provides the nutrition her child needs to prevent blindness; or put simply, a choice that we in the West take for granted.”

Giving farmers access to solutions that deliver more productive or more nutritious crops should be a “decision based on scientific debate and research” and subject to approval by national regulatory bodies, he wrote.

“Once proven (and so far, GMOs have been proven safe and effective), the use of these tools must be a choice for farmers to make,” he wrote. “And farmers are choosing GMOs in their millions: GMO crops are the fastest growing technology (in the U.S., in Brazil, in India, Argentina) - because when farmers have access to more productive, less resource-intensive crops, they seize the opportunity.”

Dryden also noted that 90% of the cotton crop in Indian is genetically modified. The 19 million acres of GM cotton in India were planted by six million farmers - meaning that the average GM cotton farm in India comprises only about three acres. These varieties require much less spraying of insecticide, he notes. It is “the farmers themselves who are seeing the benefits of all the tools in the box,” Dryden wrote. Read more.

Bill Gates recently reviewed “Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food” on his blog, The Gates Notes. Gates believes that “this is an important book for anyone who wants to learn about the science of seeds and the challenges faced by farmers.”

He sums up the book nicely, writing:

“Tomorrow’s Table is a real education on the many choices farmers today must make regarding seeds. It’s very good in explaining genetically engineered seed, how it’s used today (mostly to help plants fight off insects and tolerate herbicide) and how it will be used in the future (to increase disease resistance, drought tolerance, vitamin content and crop yields, for example). The book separates out clearly the issues of how to make sure new seeds are safe, how to price them and how to treat them as intellectual property.”

The authors, CBI Expert Dr. Pamela Ronald, and Raoul Adamchak, are a married couple who present two different sides to the organic/biotech debate and how the two systems can complement each other -she is a plant geneticist at UC Davis and he is an organic farmer.

CBI previously blogged about a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos called “Rethinking How to Feed the World.” The panel featured notable leaders and CEOs including Jakaya M. Kikwete, President of Tanzania; Ellen Kullman, CEO of Dupont USA and Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The panel’s moderator asked Bill Gates, “Are you for or against genetically modified (GM) food?” Mr. Gates showed his support for the transgenic approach, saying it can “probably do better than any other approach” and called the disease resistance opportunities in GM crops “a real help.” Transgenic organisms, a subset of GMOs, are organisms which have inserted DNA that originated in a different species.

 Given the rising number of people worldwide that are malnourished or undernourished, Bill Gates advises that we look into all available crop production options. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is currently supporting many organizations that are responsible for helping small farmers in the developing world grow more food and funding R&D in agriculture including ag biotech. For example, the Foundation funds HarvestPlus, a nonprofit that supports molecular breeding research (a type of transgenic engineering that modifies a crop for traits such as disease resistance using genes native to the crop) towards improving plant nutrition in Africa and Asia.

You can watch Bill Gates’ response to the question about GM food here.

World leaders and CEOs at the Davos 2010 World Economic Forum participated in a panel called “Rethinking how to feed the world.” The panel discussed the challenges facing global food production and possible solutions that will increase yield and support agricultural producers worldwide.

The panel was moderated by Prannoy Roy, Chairman, New Delhi Television (NDTV), India, and panelists included:

William H. Gates III, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USA
Jakaya M. Kikwete, President of Tanzania
Ellen Kullman, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, DuPont, USA
Nguyen Tan Dung, Prime Minister of Vietnam; Chair, 2010 ASEAN
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank, Washington DC; Global Agenda Council on Corruption
Patricia A. Woertz, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), USA;

According to Tanzania President Kilwete, “…a combination of mechanization, irrigation, high-yielding seeds, getting the fertilizers and imparting skills to farmers” is needed for Tanzanian farmers to improve agricultural practices and food production.

The panelists agreed that science based solutions and better education for farmers will need to play a role in increasing food production. Please comment with your thoughts on this fascinating discussion.

Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman and head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes about the importance of achieving both agricultural productivity and sustainability. As head of the largest foundation in the world, Mr. Gates has made a $1.4 billion commitment to small farmers for reducing global hunger through approaches that include agricultural technology. 

Mr. Gates writes, “I have seen proof that agricultural science can make people’s lives better” and points to advances like the Swarna-sub1 Rice, a seed variety that can survive underwater for more than two weeks and help farmers in places that are prone to floods. According to Bill Gates, the next “Green Revolution” must help feed a billion people using modern technology in a sustainable manner.

You can read the entire piece by Bill Gates here.