Green genes.

• Author: Mencimer, Stephanie

SHORTLY BEFORE HIS MAY TRIP to repair U.S. relations with Europe, President George W. Bush gave a speech in which he blamed Europe for allowing Africa to starve because of the continent's five-year ban on American imports of genetically modified (GM) foods. "By widening the use of new high-yield bio-crops and unleashing the power of markets, we can dramatically increase agricultural productivity and feed more people across the continent," he said. "Yet our partners in Europe are impeding this effort. They have blocked all new bio-crops because of unfounded, unscientific fears."

Bush's claim must be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism. Inquiring minds might want to check out Peter Pringle's new book Food, Inc. for a more nuanced assessment of the E.U. ban, as well as the potential for biotech foods in Africa and the rest of the developing world.

Pringle is a veteran British journalist whose previous book was on Ireland's 1972 Bloody Sunday. He took a journalist's approach to the issue, attempting to peel away the hype and hysteria surrounding the advent of GM food. Looking around the world at the race to acquire and develop genetically engineered plants, Pringle raises the possibility that GM foods might help the developing world by creating heartier breeds of staples for tough farming climates in Africa and elsewhere. But even as he strives to be evenhanded, he can find very little evidence that the technology will ever deliver what promoters like Bush promise.

Much of Pringle's assessment stems from his study of the Green Revolution, the last major advance in farming productivity, which was launched after World War II. The combination of fertilizers and new plant varieties that defined the revolution increased the total amount of food available per person around the world by 11 percent, while hunger declined 16 percent during the 1970s and 1980s. But Pringle notes that many of the technologies developed 50 years ago are still unavailable to farmers in the Third World, mostly because they are simply too expensive. In order to grow the hybrid seeds developed by groups like the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s, farmers also needed to buy mountains of expensive and dangerous pesticides and fertilizers, particularly to sustain the monocultures advocated by the revolution's promoters.

The same is true with the GM foods. Pringle writes, "The chemical company that sold powerful, all-embracing new weed killers now also sold seeds that...