With world wheat stocks at historic lows, some longtime opponents of
transgenic are coming to the realization that, without increased adaptation
of transgenics, the world?s farmers cannot produce enough safe, wholesome
food to feed its people, according to a media release from Kansas Wheat.
According to a non-profit, farmer-founded interest group called Growers for
Biotechnology, recent comments by European governments are an indication
that public opinion is turning the corner. A news article posted on the Web
site, www.growersforbiotechnology.org, reports that in late June, Great
Britain's Environment Minister, Phil Woolas, addressed the world's food
price crisis with this comment: "There is a growing question of whether GM
crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis. It
is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is
already under way. Many people concerned about poverty in the developing
world and the environment are wrestling with this issue."

Europe's resistance to transgenic crops has been one of the main obstacles
to more rapid adoption of the technology around the world. Developing
African nations, even those with mass starvation, have rejected transgenics
out of fear that they might lose the opportunity to sell any surplus crops
to Europe. Now, with a global food shortage exacerbating hunger around the
world, the United Kingdom is beginning to see that Europe's resistance
cannot be sustained.

Meanwhile, the chairman of Great Britain's Nestle, the world's biggest food
company, has told British lawmakers that transgenic crops are critical to
combat poverty and hunger.

"You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms,&"
Nestle's Peter Brabeck told the London Financial Times. "We have the means
to make agriculture sustainable in the long term. What we don't see for the
time being is the political will."

Brabeck said Europe's opposition to biotechnology had encouraged African
policymakers to reject transgenic crops. South Africa is the only country on
the African continent to commercialize them, growing transgeneic maize,
cotton and soybeans.

What are the benefits to wheat farmers should biotechnology be an option for
the world's wheat geneticists? Herbicide resistance, tolerance to fungal
diseases or drought tolerance all are possibilities. In fact, an Australian
researcher told Bloomberg News last week that Australia could have
transgenic, drought-tolerant wheat available globally in five to 10 years.

GMO wheat under field trials in Australia's Victoria state contains genes
from plants such as corn and moss as well as yeast, Spangenberg said on July
2. Test results show the transgenic grain generated a 20 percent gain in
yield compared with non-GMO crops under drought stress, according to German
Spangenberg, head of Australia?s Victorian AgriBiosciences Center.

Spangenberg said, "This is a very significant increase. GM wheat for drought
tolerance will be important to sustain agricultural production into the
future."

DuPont Co., the world's second-biggest producer of seeds, plans to engineer
wheat and rice to boost yields as rising demand lifts grain prices to
records. Growers and buyers have asked Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont to
develop higher-yielding wheat varieties to help keep pace with output of
crops such as corn.

Syngenta AG is also developing disease-resistant, transgenic wheat.

Despite this growing momentum, Japan and other Asian countries have vowed to
buy non-transgenic wheat and either pay a premium, or rely on their own
farmers for wheat production.

According to the farmers of Growers for Biotechnology, the need for more
food production will grow exponentially in the next several years, and
farmers must have access to new technologies to keep pace with demand.

www.checkbiotech.org