Despite European consumers longstanding aversion to genetically modified (GM) food products, BASF, the world s largest chemical company, is making headway toward European Union approval of a genetically modified potato.
BASF has submitted its Fortuna potato for E.U. approval of its commercial cultivation and human consumption. This potato has been modified to resist late blight, an extremely damaging potato disease that's responsible for the loss of about 20 percent of the world s potato crop every year. The same fungal infestation was responsible for the calamitous Irish potato famine of the 1840s that led to a mass exodus from Ireland. The Fortuna potato could make great strides toward preventing damage to current world potato crops and helping to feed the world s ballooning population.
The approval process for GM products in Europe, however, is notoriously slow, as their population has been frightened into believing that there is some sort of toxicity in genetically-engineered products, especially food. It took 14 years before a GM potato product received approval in 2010, even though it was targeted only for industrial starch production, not human consumption.
ACSH supports BASF s efforts to bring this important modified potato to the market. ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross notes, The E.U. is particularly opposed to GM foods, calling it Frankenfood out of fear and superstition whipped up by activist groups, especially Greenpeace. All of this is spurred by an ignorance of the actual risks and important benefits of genetic modifications, as well as the misguided advocacy of special-interest groups against anything that has been genetically modified. Over the 16 years of biotech agriculture, comprising millions of tons and acres, not one instance of adverse effects has been detected not in humans, animals, or the environment.