Plant breeding

The conference I went to on the food crisis this weekend was very good. One thing that was confirmed for me is the wrong-headedness of the focus on plant breeding. Plant breeding was a key focus of the Green Revolution and is a focus of the programs the Gates Foundation is promoting for Africa. Scientifically, it's a very poor decision since it lessens biodiversity. A single disease can wipe out almost everything. Second, the true purpose of this is not to help peasants, but to privatize the seedbank. A great example of this is the yellow rice (with vitamin A), which was actually developed by plant breeders who truly do care. But their approach to hunger was totally wrong. Aside from the fact that access, not production, is the problem, and aside from the fact that you need fat to absorb vitamin A, and aside from the fact that vitamin A is already plentiful in many fruits and vegetables---there already are several varieties of rice with vitamin A! Red rice is well known throughout the world (it's a weed for those who want regular rice) and has much more vitamin A than the yellow rice did. If the yellow rice breeders had good intentions, maybe they should have done some research. The road to hell is paved with good intentions... if you don't care enough to truly look at the implications of your actions, you are not going to do any good.

This is good for me to know especially since I turned down a great grad assistant position that would have had me studying in Brazil for a year or two if I wished. But a key focus was plant breeding, and that wasn't something I felt was worth my time. Not that there's no place for it--but the emphasis is problematic. Especially when new breeds are genetically engineered--it just drives the price up. Why not just cultivate varieties that already have drought resistance, or disease resistance, or high yield? Oh, because it's not profitable, I forgot.

That being said, I love the organic plant breeders I know. They have the yummiest tomatoes, because the organic market is looking for good-tasting varieties.