For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.

THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE

Dear Friends and Colleagues

Re: GE and the Big Challenges for Agriculture – Lessons from the US

We are pleased to highlight the attached TWN Biosafety Briefing which evaluates the impact of genetic engineering (GE) in the United States on three important challenges to agriculture: increasing food productivity, increasing nitrogen use efficiency, and increasing drought tolerance.

Based on the evidence, the Briefing concludes that GE has made only very minor progress toward addressing the big challenges for agriculture now and in coming years, whereas crop breeding and better, agroecologically-based, farming practices are much more effective than GE at confronting agriculture’s challenges.

This paper was presented at the Scientific Conference 2012 jointly organized by the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), Third World Network and Tara Foundation, ‘Advancing the Understanding of Biosafety: GMO Risk Assessment, Independent Biosafety Research and Holistic Analysis’, held on 28-29 September 2012 in Hyderabad, India, and was first published in the Conference Proceedings.

With best wishes,

Third World Network