opinions-political-geneticCrops

http://nytimes.com/2003/01/09/business/09CND_FOOD.html

i just mentioned this to present a critical fact that this story is leaving out

summary of the article:

"The Bush administration's top trade official announced today that he wanted to file a case against the European Union for its ban on genetically modified food, calling the European position "Luddite" and "immoral" for leading to starvation in the developing world.

 Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, said helost his patience with the four-year-old feud about the safety of American biotechnology food last year when African nations with starving populations refused to accept American food aid because the grain was genetically modified.
 "The European antiscientific policies are spreading to other cornersof the world," Mr. Zoellick said at a meeting with reporters.

"

what they don't tell you:

the refusal of African countries to accept genetically modified food is partially about intellectual property. US companies have patents on the genetically modified food. There have been cases in the past in which genetically modified food imported into African countries has inadvertantly crosspollinated with native farmers' stocks, at which point the US companies with the patents sue the farmers for patent infrigement, holding that unintentional patent infringement is still infringement. The suits are still in the courts. But if I was a leader of an African country, I'd be doing the same thing as them. The cost of these American lawsuits are probably greater than the value of the free food.