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An Open Letter to the United Nations Commissionon Sustainable
Development
April 24, 2000
Delegates to the Eighth Session of the
United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Sustainable Agriculture
Dear Sirs and Madams:
As you gather this week to discuss the global need for sustainable agricultural
practices, we as members of the scientific community applaud your goals
of relieving hunger and malnutrition and conserving the natural world.
However, we urge you to consider the very real threat that an overly-strict
adherence to precautionary regulation could pose to both the environment
and to the well being of human populations around the world.
In the coming days, you will be bombarded with calls to increase the
strength of precautionary regulation and to restrict the use of many new
agricultural technologies. In particular, some advocates of precaution
will oppose the introduction of crop plants developed with recombinant
DNA techniques. However, the view that the present day recombinant DNA-engineered
organisms pose new or greater dangers to the environment or human health
are neither supported by the weight of scientific research nor by a great
majority of the scientific community. On April 5, the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences issued a report, which stated that there is no evidence suggesting
foods produced through biotechnology are any less safe than conventional
crops. In fact, the scientific panel concluded, growing such crops could
have environmental advantages over other crops. Another recent report
from a US Congress Committee on Science summarizing testimonies from leading
scientists makes a very strong case for the safety of biotechnology and
warns against needless over-regulation, which could delay development
of a technology with great potential for public good.
More than one billion people around the world live on less than one
dollar each day. Millions of people go hungry, and hundreds of millions
more receive inadequate levels of dietary nutrients. But agricultural
researchers around the globe are now using recombinant DNA techniques
to improve many important plant varieties useful in impoverished regions.
Such new products can for the first time give small farmers the ability
to grow more robust and more nutritious foods. Furthermore, by increasing
productivity we can reduce the need for additional croplands and agricultural
chemicals. Thus, rDNA-engineered plants can themselves be a major contributor
to environmental protection and to the overall goal of sustainable agriculture.
By insisting upon an unachievable standard of zero risk, though, advocates
of precaution could endanger our ability to use these techniques to help
improve peoples' lives and protect the environment.
Attached below, you will find a copy of a 'Declaration of Scientists
in Support of Agricultural Biotechnology' which has now been endorsed
by more than 2,100 scientists from around the world including Norman Borlaug,
James Watson, and Gurdev Khush. You will note that the vast majority of
signatories are from the agricultural and biological science communities,
and are well informed of the relative risks and benefits of biotechnology.
This document is just one testament to the overwhelming support which
rDNA techniques command from the scientific community. Again, we urge
you not to view recombinant DNA techniques as a threat to environmental
stewardship or human health. Rather, we urge you to view this new technology
as a powerful and safe means for the modification of organisms that can
contribute substantially in enhancing agriculture and protecting the environment.
Yours truly,
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C. S. Prakash
Tuskegee University, USA
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Klaus Ammann
University of Bern, Switzerland
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Michael Horn
Society for In-Vitro Biology, USA
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Roger N. Beachy
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, USA
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Martina McGloughlin
University of California at Davis, USA
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Richard Braun
University of Bern, Switzerland
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David McConnell
Trinity College, Ireland
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R. James Cook
Washington State University, USA
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Wayne Parrott
University of Georgia, USA
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