Experts Comment on Safety and Benefits of Plant Biotech

A new conversation by 14 internationally recognized scientists, economists, and thought leaders discussing the benefits of genetically modified (GM) food crops is available on the Conversations about Plant Biotechnology web site. The conversation highlights plant biotech’s proven safety, benefits to the environment, and contributions to the lives of third-world farm families and communities.

"Here we have a very versatile technology, which has the power and the capacity to contribute to a more effective, a more benign, and a more sustainable agriculture” says Dr. Clive James, founder of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).  Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and of the United Nations Millennium Project, notes that technologies in poor places such as better seed varieties, better ways to manage soil nutrients and plant pathogens, will create livelihoods, generate income for the villages and convert sub-subsistence agriculture into commercial farming. This will help the poorest of the poor to invest in a sustainable future for themselves.

For about 20 years, GM food crops have been planted by more than 10 million farmers in 22 countries in more than 100 million hectares (250 million acres).

Visit the web site at http://www.monsanto.com/biotech-gmo/asp/default.asp