CIMMYT: Bill Gates Invests $25 Million In Controversial GM Crop Center
TEXCOCO, Mexico -- The research center largely responsible for launching the "green revolution" of the 1960s that dramatically raised crop yields is getting support from the world's richest men to develop genetically-modified seeds to help farmers in the developing world grow more grain in the face of a changing climatic conditions and increased demand.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim donated a total of $25 million to build a new cluster of biotechnology labs at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico.
The facilities include hothouses "with high-efficiency air particle filters and a water treatment plant to prevent pollen and genetically modified material from escaping to the outdoors," according to a statement by the billionaires' foundations.
Both of the philanthropists were on hand for Wednesday's inauguration of the new labs at the research center, known as CIMMYT, located just east of Mexico City.
GM traits could be developed by the center and donated, or they could be bought cheaply. That's where Gates and his foundation could come in. With his help CIMMYT, which is known for charging farmers as little as possible, could pick up some of the older traits for low prices.
"Some of these traits are getting near the end of their patent life or are available from multiple entities, so that there's even some competition there," Gates noted.
Lumpkin warned that the world could face a recurrence of the kind of crisis that CIMMYT was able to stave off 50 years ago, this time brought about by new plant diseases, climate change, water shortages and increasing consumption of grain-intensive foods, like meat.
"On one hand, there is rapidly increasing demand ... on the other hand, conditions for producing this food are deteriorating rapidly," he said.
Without new research avenues, he warned, "we have all of the ingredients for a new global food crisis."
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