Also in the letter, you mention “better seeds” as something that will create wealth in poor countries. Are you talking about GMO crops?
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A lot of the improved seeds will use GMO techniques as time goes on, as you’re looking for really powerful drought-resistance, salt-tolerance, and other things like that. Most of the new seeds that we’re doing right now are non-GMO because there’s still a lot of room for conventional breeding-type improvements.
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It’s important that the poor countries that have the toughest time feeding their people have a process, just like they have for medicines. In terms of injecting people and taking drugs, they’ve done a good job making sure that those things are tested and go through a regulatory approval process. The same type of thing should be true for new food products, no matter what technique is used to create them. There should be an open-mindedness, and if they can specifically prove their safety and benefits, foods should be approved, just like they are in middle-income countries.
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Middle-income countries are the biggest users of GMOs. Places like Brazil. Small farmers have gotten soy beans and cotton and things like that. But we’re trying to get African agriculture up to high productivity—it’s about a third of rich-world productivity right now—and we need the full range of scientific innovation, with really good safety checking, to work on behalf of the poor.
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