Robert Paarlberg

Robert Paarlberg is an American academic and author who lobbies for GM crops and foods.

Hyping GM for Africa

Paarlberg's book, Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa (Harvard University Press, March 2008), claims that poor African farmers are denied access to productive technologies, particularly GM seeds, which he says offer improved resistance to insects and drought.

This is in spite of the fact that as of 2009, GM companies have patented plant genes involved in tolerance to drought, heat, flooding, and salinity — but have not produced a single new crop with these properties. This is because these functions are highly complex and involve many different genes working together in a precise way. It is beyond existing GM technology to engineer crops with these sophisticated gene networks for improved tolerance traits.

Conventional natural cross-breeding, which works holistically, is much better adapted to achieving this aim, using the many varieties of virtually every common crop that tolerate drought, heat, flooding, and salinity. This conclusion is backed by the IAASTD report on the future of agriculture (April 2008) and many individual studies across the world.

An article for Voice of America, "US Academic makes Fiery Argument for Africa to Embrace Biotechnology" punts Paarlberg's book, Starved for Science. In the article, Paarlberg is cited as blaming activists in rich countries for inadvertently denying "improved agricultural techniques" (read: GM) to millions of poor farmers in Africa. Paarlberg says there’s no “scientific evidence” of health risks posed by GMOs – ignoring the large body of evidence that has accumulated showing such risks. As a result of what he calls a “misinformed” anti-GM movement, he says crops that could eventually allow Africa to feed itself are being kept out of the continent.

Paarlberg does acknowledge that "foods derived from genetically engineered seeds don't look any better or taste any better or store any longer or prepare any better; they're not any more nutritious and they're not noticeably cheaper." But he "repeatedly emphasizes that the chief benefit of GM technology for Africa is the production of more food."

The problem with this is that there isn't any convincing evidence that GM crops do, in general, produce more food, let alone that they would in the particular circumstances of Africa. As the 2500-page IAASTD report, based on peer reviewed publications, noted: yield gains in GM crops were "highly variable" and in some cases, "yields declined". That's why the report concluded GM was not essential to meeting the problems of food security.

Paarlberg also calls on policy makers to stop imposing visions of "organic food purity" on Africa - "a continent that has never had a green revolution". But Africa did have an attempted green revolution - and it failed.

Meanwhile, as the IAASTD report noted, innovative IPM/agroecological approaches have proven highly successful in Africa. The IAASTD report notes that they can deliver effective crop protection and pesticide reduction and yield advantages. In fact, their yield advantages have been particularly strong in the developing world, increasing productivity for poor farmers while enhancing sustainability. The IAASTD report also notes that the community-wide economic, social, health and environmental benefits of these approaches have been widely documented.

After the publication of one study looking at a large number of projects in the developing world, New Scientist commented, "Low-tech 'sustainable agriculture', shunning chemicals in favour of natural pest control and fertiliser, is pushing up crop yields on poor farms across the world, often by 70 per cent or more... The findings will make sobering reading for people convinced that only genetically modified crops can feed the planet's hungry in the 21st century... A new science-based revolution is gaining strength built on real research into what works best on the small farms where a billion or more of the world's hungry live and work... It is time for the major agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the revolution."

Paarlberg, however, is unwilling to acknowledge this science-based revolution, preferring instead to promote GM's unproven silver bullets. Curious, incidentally, that the Voice of America fails to mention that Paarlberg is "a member of the Biotechnology Advisory Council to the CEO of the Monsanto Company." Perhaps he forgot to tell them.

Paarlberg's also a member of the Emerging Markets Advisory Committee at the United States Department of Agriculture, and a consultant to USAID, the World Bank and the National Intelligence Council (NIC) - the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the United States Intelligence Community.

According to his Wellesley College profile, "Paarlberg has also recently completed major studies of regional policy harmonization toward biotechnology in eastern and southern Africa, for the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) on the politics of accepting biofortified food crops in developing countries, commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Profile/mr/rpaarlberg.html

This work by Paarlberg - the Monsanto CEO's Advisor - would seem to tie in very neatly with the recent multi-million dollar award by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the (heavily Monsanto-funded) Danforth Center to help it gain regulatory acceptance for GM biofortified food crops.

It should not be forgotten, of course, that Rob Horsch, a senior Monsanto executive, is now part of the Gates Foundation, as is Lawrence Kent of the Danforth Center, which is heavily funded by Monsanto. Both are working for Gates on the funding of projects aimed at the developing world.

The Danforth Center's president, Roger Beachy said of their appointment that it wouldn't hurt to have two people familiar with St. Louis researchers holding the strings to the Gates Foundation's large purse. (Gates Foundation taps a second St. Louisan) http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/E34D9E8106D7B38E8625725A00160E76?OpenDocument)

For more on the Danforth Center http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6979 For how the Danforth Center is heavily financially dependent on Monsanto: http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=200

See also:

"Biotech snake oil: a quack cure for hunger", Bill Freese, Multinational Monitor, Vol. 29 No. 2, Sept-Oct 2008, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/092008/freese.html

"Genetic engineering – a crop of hyperbole", Doug Gurian-Sherman, San Diego Union Tribune, 18 June 2008, http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080618/news_lz1e18gurian.html

"Organic farming 'could feed Africa' – report", Daniel Howden, The Independent, 22 October 2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/organic-farming-could -feed-africa-968641.html

"Is ecological agriculture productive?", Lim Li Ching, Third World Network, November 2008, http://www.twnside.org.sg/title2/susagri/susagri064.htm

Biographical information

Robert Paarlberg is the Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He received his B.A. in government from Carleton College in Minnesota and his Ph.D. in government from Harvard. He has served as visiting professor of government at Harvard, as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate, and as an officer in the U.S. Naval Intelligence Command. Paarlberg's principal research interests are international agricultural and environmental policy.

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