During this presentation Dr. Sahai and Dr. Giddings will present their views on GM technology. Following are their abstracts.

Dr. Sahai Abstract
The general public and consumers in the developed world view the food and agriculture resulting from GM technology with great concern. While people in developing countries may share some of these concerns, they are more worried about other things.

In the developing world, the first concern is the fundamental mismatch in crops and traits between what developing countries need and what today's GM seeds offer. People also worry that introducing GM technology will threaten the existence and diversity of indigenous species. This aspect of agricultural biotechnology has been studied very little. Getting smallholder, largely illiterate farmers who are uninformed about GM technology to adopt it will be difficult. But weak, ineffective regulatory structures are perhaps the principal concerns. As research continues, it will be prudent to postpone commercial release of GM crops until regulatory institutions in developing countries improve and can demonstrate competence, capacity, accountability, and public involvement in the introduction of GM crops and monitoring their use and impact.

Dr. Giddings Abstract
Scale independence is one of the salient features of agricultural applications of modern biotechnology (i.e., recombinant DNA). Unlike many of the hugely beneficial advances resulting from the first “Green Revolution” agricultural biotechnology is not dependent on economies of scale or massive external supplements of fertilizers, pesticides, and large acreage. Rather, the benefits of biotech in agriculture are delivered through the seed. This provides a potent means to reduce some of the disadvantages inherent in small scale, subsistence agriculture. This has been demonstrated in growing experiences of developing world farmers, esp. with soybeans in Argentina and Brazil, and cotton in South Africa, India, and China.

But declines in public sector research funding over the past two decades present significant impediments to exploitation of the full potential of biotech for small holder farmers in the developing world. Still more pernicious impediments have been manufactured by other parties who have conjured contra factual scare scenarios focusing on alleged threats to agriculture in crop centers of origin, developing country regulatory deficiencies, and other issues that work to advance the interests of the global protest industry and its various surrogates. Much work remains to be done to get various governments and multilateral organizations to base policies and decisions on facts and data.