March 24, 2000, Friday / By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- Giving genetically engineered food a boost in developing countries is the aim of legislation by Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., that was added to a landmark trade bill headed to the Senate floor.
The measure allowing sales of U.S. food and medicine to Cuba for the first time in 40 years - also sponsored by Ashcroft - cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday after the panel's chairman, Sen. Jesse Helms, dropped his opposition.
Before approving the sanctions-lifting bill, the panel voted to include an amendment authorizing $6 million in U.S. aid to help developing countries set up regulatory systems for scientific review of all types of biotechnology, a provision aimed at helping such crops as corn and soybeans genetically designed to kill pests or withstand herbicides.
From corn in tortilla chips to tomatoes in pasta sauce, such foods are widely used in the United States but have met with resistance in Europe and Asia. St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. is a leader in this technology.
"Europe is shutting out genetically enhanced products from the United States without any sound basis in science," Ashcroft said, arguing that his provision will help developing nations to consider scientific findings that it is no different from conventional food.
Biotechnology supporters say it holds potential for developing more nutritious crops that need less water and have a variety of new uses, such as bananas that would inoculate against childhood diseases in developing countries.
But foes say far too little is known of possible allergens and their effect on the environment, including the emergence of "superweeds" from genetically engineered crops.
Ashcroft and his colleagues have urged President Clinton and his cabinet to press the case of U.S. agricultural biotechnology before the World Trade Organization and other international forums.
He grilled Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last month on the Biosafety Protocol negotiated in Montreal, which has drawn mixed response from farm country and from the industry and support from the environmental community. Ashcroft has been among its harshest critics.
A member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Ashcroft also has used his position to make the case for such crops to leaders of other nations.
Meanwhile, his fellow Missourian, GOP Sen. Christopher Bond, has been lobbying the issue on another front: the Senate Appropriations Committee, on which he serves.
He is seeking millions of dollars in funding for research and development of biotechnology from a variety of government accounts, including money for U.S. research institutions for projects involving problems confronted by farmers in developing nations, from nutritionally enhanced food to plant-based medicines to environmentally-friendly planting methods.
Scientists in Southeast Asia, Central Africa and South America are among those who would benefit under the proposed funding.
Bond also seeks to beef up the State Department's staff of negotiators to prepare them to push the issue and to boost the agency's efforts to make the case to foreign governments with its speakers program.
Bond also has peppered colleagues with dozens of letters, articles and editorials making the case for biotechnology.
"This is a direct threat to the viability of an important technology and it stems from those who are using misinformation and hysteria to cast a cloud over this important technology," he and Sen. Richard Lugar, the Agriculture Committee chairman, wrote colleagues about European policies on genetically modified food.
Biotechnology was the focus of an 11-day trip Bond took earlier this year to Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia that featured meetings with officials of Monsanto and other Missouri companies.
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