COLORADO FARMERS FACE HARD SELL FOR BIOENGINEERING
Denver Rocky Mountain News | January 15, 2000 | Joe Garner
Colorado farmers will have to court consumers to win acceptance of genetically altered foods, a panel of agricultural leaders said Friday.
But they'll face a hard sell, the leaders said at a largely one-sided discussion of the controversial issue at the National Western Stock Show.
Consumers have been fed a steady diet of emotional news reports and false Internet messages and are conditioned to distrust foods bioengineered to be tastier and more hardy. And that has put perplexed farmers and food manufacturers on the defensive.
"If the American public knew the benefits of genetically enhanced products, they would embrace them," Roger Bill Mitchell, president of the Colorado Farm Bureau, predicted at the forum on 21st-century agriculture.
Someday, "genetically enhanced crops will be as important as the tractor was to our grandfather," Mitchell said.
Research in genetic modification holds the promise of benefiting farmers by creating corn, wheat, soybeans and other crops that resist drought and disease, so yields increase.
The battle will continue at the checkout counter.
The nation's two largest natural-food store chains, including Boulder-based Wild Oats Markets Inc., last month said they will ban genetically modified ingredients from about 1,300 private-label products. The move follows similar bans by major European supermarket chains, reacting to consumer worries about unforeseen health risks of eating genetically altered foods.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration considers genetically modified foods safe and essentially no different from conventional foods, which also have evolved through decades of testing to increase yields and appeal to consumers.
Geist and other panelists cited the health benefits from Friday's announcement of a new variety of rice, rich in beta carotene from three genes spliced into it, that could improve health in poor nations.
Similarly, other crops could be modified to make them more nutritious and healthful.
"Right now, this is the best technology out there to feed people on this planet," Geist said.
