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Biotechnology has a key role to play in helping to feed people in the
poorest countries, says a report from the OECD published last week. ‘The
need is greatest in developing countries,’ says Dick Flavell, the director
of the Agricultural and Food Research Council’s Institute of Plant Science
Research in Norwich. ‘We should do everything we can to disseminate the
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While highly critical of the failures of governments and industry to
pass on their advances in biotechnology, the report also attacks pressure
groups in rich nations who claim that biotechnology will ruin the economies
of developing nations. ‘The early worries about biotechnology wiping out
crops from developing nations were exaggerated,’ says Saloman Wald, the
head of the OECD’s Biotechnology Unit in Paris. ‘We think most developing
countries need bio³Ù±ð³¦³ó²Ô´Ç±ô´Ç²µ²â.’ Developing countries are concerned that worries
over safety in Europe might delay the introduction of biotechnology in their
countries.

Barry Cross, the scientific editor of the report, says: ‘In (Britain)
we take a rather parochial view of biotechnology and forget that half the
world is underfed . . . ‘