[00:04.83]Last month, delegates from more than one-hundred nations approved the first international treaty
[00:12.54]about trade in products made by processes of genetic engineering.
[00:18.00]Genetic engineering involves changing the genes of living organisms.
[00:24.24]The new agreement did not end the worldwide debate about genetically-engineered crops, however.
[00:32.00]Four agricultural experts discussed the issue at a recent conference in Washington, D.C.
[00:39.71]Gordon Conway is an ecologist and president of the Rockefeller Foundation.
[00:46.79]Mister Conway said he believes genetically-engineered foods might help to end world hunger.
[00:55.07]But he says the risks from such crops are important to consider.
[01:01.02]Mister Conway says the issue is whether some genes may accidentally spread to other living things.
[01:09.85]He says this could lead to the creation of strong plants or insects with a resistance to the treated crops.
[01:19.10]He also is concerned about the effect of genetically-engineered plants on the soil.
[01:26.67]Patrick Holden is director of the Soil Association of the United Kingdom,
[01:32.21]a British group that supports the idea of chemical-free agriculture.
[01:38.51]He told the conference that his group's opposition to genetic engineering has been growing since the early 1990s.
[01:48.30]He says this opposition is based on possible threats to the environment and human health.
[01:56.87]He also says the technology denies choice to producers and consumers and is not necessary in developing countries.
[02:07.56]However, a leading Kenyan environmentalist dismissed the idea that developing countries do not need genetically-engineered crops.
[02:18.76]Calestous Juma is director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[02:29.60]Mister Juma says genetic engineering could help improve crops and people's diets and increase money for farmers.
[02:39.50]It could also help end hunger and reduce the number of poor people in developing countries.
[02:47.26]He says many nations already have policies for using the technologies in a safe way.
[02:55.41]Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in the state of Kansas says some good could result from genetic engineering research.
[03:05.13]But he says most efforts to redesign plants probably would fail. |