Cell phones and cancer, nuclear power and cancer, GMOs and...cancer. If there is an anti-science position, someone in Europe is embracing it, and food is no different.

But practicality sometimes makes science - even spooky, scary science like the kind that takes an all-natural pest-resistant gene and puts it into another plant - more palatable. 

Europe can afford to be anti-science when it comes to food. They are part of the agricultural 1%, they don't have to worry about feeding their people or enduring a difficult agricultural climate any more than the US does. But the rest of the world does not have that luxury.

Europe needs to hope the third world is not just around the corner, in that sense. You never wish ill on people but by denying science, they are making themselves vulnerable to just such a crisis. Jack Bobo, senior adviser on biotech to Hillary Clinton, says the EU moratorium on GM crops has been gold for their politics - they keep developing nations who are not part of the rich Food 1% from being able to compete - but a disaster to poor people. He has urged countries to make decisions on the technology based on science and not politics, but that is not going to happen.

And it's a pot calling the kettle black, if I may use idioms - because President Obama has been even more anti-science than President Bush was, an even bigger disappointment since Obama is clearly smart enough to know better. 

The problem will take care of itself, of course. Europe has fallen behind in science overall and they will soon fall behind in agriculture. But it doesn't have to be that way. However, it will be, as long as more people are being born - and we add the population of Germany to the world every year.



Food crisis will prompt GM foods rethink, says US aide by Philip Case, Farmers Weekly