St. Louis, Missouri
March 27, 2006
Many factors affecting
biodiversity are directly and indirectly related to
agriculture and the need to produce more food for more
people on limited arable land. "The priority is to feed the
people, but we must do it in a way to keep as much
biodiversity as possible," says Klaus Ammann, former
director of the Botanical Garden and an Honorary Professor
Emeritus at the University of Berne, Switzerland.
Practices and technologies
that increase the productivity of existing farmland is one
way to help limit any negative impact on biodiversity.
Critics often try to relate GM crops with negative impacts,
yet the benefits of GM crops related to biodiversity are
documented. "I have screened thousands of studies and
scientific peer-reviewed papers and I have not seen single
documentation of permanent negative impact on biodiversity
done by genetically engineered crops. It's a myth that this
has happened," continues Dr. Ammann in a new video and
podcast available at
http://www.biotech-gmo.com.
In fact, growers can more
easily incorporate no-tillage practices with herbicide-tolerant
GM crops, which generates improvements in soil life and
fertility. Independent research and a decade of commercial scale
usage also demonstrates that non-target insects are more
abundant in insect-tolerant GM crops (Bt crops).
"I cannot understand why people
are against this technology," says Dr. Ammann, a member of the
Biosafety Committee for Switzerland. "If we want to survive as
human beings on this planet, we need to produce more food on
smaller amounts of land. This is certainly done best with
biotechnology. We cannot do that by just romantically following
on old-fashioned agriculture. We must come to terms with using
modern technology."
Klaus Ammann's exclusive
interview can be found at Monsanto Company's "Conversations
about Plant Biotechnology" website:
http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/new.htm. |