The debate over biotech crops has become predictable. In his
2012 annual letter from the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, who
has a near-religious faith in technology and innovation, argues
that an “extremely important revolution” in plant science, i.e.,
genetically-engineered crops, can help farmers in poor countries
by giving them access to new varieties of crops that will better
resist disease and adapt to climate change. Days later, the
Center for Food Safety, a Washington watchdog group and
persistent critic of Big Ag, pushed back, saying that biotech
crops had failed to deliver on their promise to alleviate
hunger, and that Gates would do better to support low-cost
“agroecological techniques” that don’t depend on patented,
genetically-engineered seeds. The conflicting claims and
supporting data are hard to sift through. Will disease-resistant
biotech cassava answer the prayers of Christina Mwinjipe, a
farmer in Tanzania, whose crops are threatened by diseases, as
Gates writes? Or will patented genetically