The December 8-14 cover of The Economist, a respected British news weekly, trumpeted its lead article, “The End of Cheap Food” and the December 17 cover of Business Week declared “Future Seed”, about the triumph and potential of genetically modified crops around the world.

It was a good news/bad news week and, depending on whether you are an optimist or pessimist, one in which you could declare you were right either way. Food prices were going to rise or, conversely, there was going to be ample food to feed the world’s billions.

What emerged from both articles, however, were two central themes. If governments would stay out of the business of mandating and maneuvering agricultural markets everyone would benefit whether it’s farmers or consumers. Likewise, the efforts of environmental groups like Greenpeace or the specious Center for Science in the Public Interest to frighten the public with claims that genetically modified (GM) crops were the scourge of mankind have generally failed.

Like so many of the environmental fantasies of earth’s doom and of man-made horrors that threaten mankind, the effort to suppress the real science and the real facts either contributes to current problems or has been replaced by the emerging truth.

Here are some of the facts worth noting. Yes, world food prices are rising. Wheat, corn, and rice prices per ton have been increasing. However, it is not scarcity that is the usual source of such increases in cost. It is, ironically, the news that the increasing wealth in China and India “is stroking demand for meat in those countries, in turn boosting the demand for cereals to feed to animals.”

The other factor driving up the cost, particularly of corn, is the idiotic U.S. mandate to require that all gasoline used in the U.S. include an ethanol additive. In 2000 around 15 million tons of American corn was wasted in this fashion and this year the quantity is likely to be around 85 million tons.

“America is easily the world’s largest corn exporter—and it now uses more of its corn crop for ethanol than it sells abroad,” said The Economist. Moreover, the U.S. actually subsidizes the production of ethanol! Gasoline producers hate it and consumers pay more for it, despite the fact that it actually lowers the energy level per gallon of gasoline. How astonishingly stupid is that?

A professor of mine once taught that no nation is more than two weeks away from a revolution to overthrow its leaders if food begins to run out. Not long ago the rising cost of corn had people rioting in the streets of Mexico. Food price controls have been imposed in nations such as Argentina, Morocco, Egypt, Mexico, Vietnam, Serbia, the Ukraine, Russia, and China. If you think ideology will get people reaching for their guns and pitchforks, just let food supplies drop.

The good news comes in the form of the Business Week article on GM crops. “A growing multitude of farmers around the world is planting them.” Pioneered by Monsanto, these seeds “contain genes that kill bugs and tolerate weed-killing pesticides. So they are much easier and cheaper to grow than traditional seeds. More than half the crops grown in the U.S., including nearly all the soybeans and 70% of the corn, are genetically modified.”

“The battle over genetically modified foods is being won not in scientific journals but on the ground. Global demand for food and fuel has made farmers ever eager to squeeze more yield from an acre of dirt…the most dire predictions of Monsanto’s opponents have so far failed to come true.” This is good news. The bad news is that “Hostility toward GMO foods continues to be widespread in Africa and parts of Asia and Western Europe.”

Corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola, the primary GM crops are “harvested mostly for industrial uses, going from the farmer to a processing plant where they become animal feed or biodiesel fuel. The consumer never directly encounters them at the store.” There is indirect consumer contact in the form of grain products such as cornstarch, corn syrup, or cooking oil. Indeed, in the U.S. some 60% to 70% of all “formulated foods”, processed food with more than one ingredient, contains GMOs.

In time, the world’s population will be enjoying the benefits of more genetically modified food crops in terms of increased quantities and affordability. There is no evidence that eating a GM food is any different from eating an organically grown one, although the latter has probably been subjected to far more pesticides and herbicides. Ironic, eh?

Greenpeace and other environmental groups will continue to oppose these advances that benefit mankind, but when have they ever supported anything that does?

Author’s note: Before I get accused of being in the pay of Monsanto, let it be said that I receive no funding from them. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.