Earlier this year the Anglo-Swedish firm AstraZeneca andthe German based Greenovation acquired exclusive rights to a new strainof genetically engineered Vitamin A rice. Swiss and German scientists hadengineered the rice to produce beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A.Beta-carotene gives the rice a golden hue and its name. The firms say theywill give the rice seed free to third world farmers who earn less than$10,000 per year. First world farmers will be charged.

"In addition to the protests from anti-GM protesters,AstraZeneca officials admit that the two-tier price system might be difficultto maintain," reported Philanthropy News Digest in May, 2000.

AstraZeneca has offered the rice for free to third worldfarmers, there are still nearly 70 patent claims on the golden rice technology.

"Will the cost of paying royalties for the previous 70patent claims be added to the cost of the golden rice? Which of the royaltieson the seventy-odd patents would the Third World farmers be absolved frompaying," the ISIS audit asks.

ISIS also asks whether or not third world farmers wouldbe required to obtain seed from corporate vendors each year or will theybe able to save their own seed as has been the tradition with many thirdworld farmers.

The ISIS report points out that there is a vitamin A deficiencyin many rice consuming countries because previous green revolution technologieseliminated agricultural diversity on farms.
"The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) starteda project in 1985 to deal with vitamin A deficiency using a combinationof food fortification, food supplements and general improvements in dietsby encouraging people to grow and eat a variety of green leafy vegetables."
Prior to the Green Revolution many third world farmersgrew a wide variety of leafy greens. International and government aid programscreated incentives to give up these diverse and nutritious crops in favorof the high yielding green revolution rice varieties.
Additionally, unpolished and unmilled rice contains vitaminA. Traditional Asian diets included unpolished rice. Green Revolution ricevarieties require polishing, and the elimination of vitamin A, so theyhave long storage lives required for export.
ISIS also reports that vitamin A from rice alone maynot be available to the body. Vitamin A assimilation requires a varieddiet which is not available to rural people who grow green revolution stylerice monocultures.

"To offer the poor and malnourished a high-tech 'goldenrice' tied up in multiple patents, that has cost US$100 million to produceand may cost as much to develop, is worse than telling them to eat cake,"Mae-wan Ho, the author of the ISIS report stated.

In July of this year The US National Academy of Sciences,along with academies from third world countries, issued a report sayingthat biotech companies weren't doing enough to help third world farmers.Biotech industry spokesman Val Giddings responded by saying governmentsshould do more to support agricultural biotechnology. The golden rice projectwas largely funded by the Swiss government.

*I originally wrote this forIATPFood Safety & Healtha

SOURCES: NUTRITION WEEK, August 18, 2000; Marc Kaufman,Report Says Biotech Fails To Help Neediest Farmers, WASHINGTON POST, July11, 2000; Kelvin Ng, THIRD WORLD NETWORK, June 22, 2000; Dr. Mae-wan Ho,The 'Golden Rice' - An Exercise in How Not to Do Science, Institute ofScience in Society; Genetically Modified "Golden Rice" Donated to FightBlindness in Developing Countries, PHILANTHROPY NEWS DIGEST, May 23, 2000.

It seems this rancher had sent a shipment of sheep tomarket in the east. He waited patiently for his check, as farmers do. Insteadhe received a letter saying that the sheep had not brought enough at marketto pay for the freight to get them there. Enclosed with the letter wasan invoice for the balance of the shipping. The farmer, being short oncash, puzzled over how to settle up his accounts. Being an honest man hesettled on the best thing he could do. He sent another load of sheep.
Willard Cochrane is an agricultural economist with hisagricultural roots in Iowa. Richard Levins is also an agricultural economist.Cochrane is professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Levins,also a professor at the U of M, has written a frugal and tightly packedlittle book about Dr. Cochrane.

Iowans and economists tend suffer at the butt of manya Minnesota joke. Perhaps their reputations are deserved, in general atleast.

Drs. Levins and Cochrane fit no stereotypes about economistsor Iowans. Levins' well written and easy to read tale, "Willard Cochraneand the American Family Farm", is fascinating history, good story tellingand important discussion of yesterdays, today's and tomorrow's Americanfarm policy. These two fellows, regardless of their professions and placesof origin, have some pretty interesting things to say.

It is unfortunate, however, that Richard Levins has tointroduce those of us who claim to care for the preservation family farmto Willard Cochrane. Cochrane is among the greatest standard bearers forfamily farm agriculture in America.

One of the photos in the books small gathering of imagesof Cochrane's life shows the economist whispering to the slightly inclinedear of John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles.That Kennedy went on to become candidate and then President is known wellto the world. That Cochrane, a University of Minnesota Professor of AgriculturalEconomics, was a principle advisor to the Kennedy campaign and later toAgriculture Secretary Freeman had become submerged in history. In fact,Cochrane wrote the farm plank in the Kennedy platform. Levins recountsthe story on how this came about. Cochrane, a somewhat young and wet aboutthe ears academic, was invited to lunch with Bobby and Ted Kennedy.

"On the way to lunch Bobby turned to Cochrane and saidrather casually, 'I understand you are going to take care of the farm plankin the platform for us.' Without thinking, Cochrane replied, "I guess so."This was decidedly not the response Bobby Kennedy was expecting. He turnedand demanded, 'Are you or are you not going to take care of the farm plankfor us?' A shaken Cochrane quickly revised his response and never forgothis first lesson in the seriousness of presidential politics."

Professor Cochrane went on to write the speech for Kennedythat defined his campaign position on agriculture and, later, the Kennedyadministration's broad position on agriculture.

Levins writes that the last concerted and wide rangingeffort to save the American family farm took place under JFK. That effortwas largely forged by Willard Cochrane.

"One of the great issues confronting agriculture and thenation is the economic survival of the family farm pattern of agriculture.The owner operated family farm, where managerial skills, capital investmentand labor are combined in the productive enterprise, is at stake . . .non-farm capital is taking over the managerial function in agriculturereducing the members of independent farm families to the status of laborers. . .," wrote the Cochrane/Kennedy team in "Agricultural Policy for theNew Frontier".

Cochrane's short lived stint as a small farm mole in thehalls of Washington makes good reading not only because Cochrane's an interestingguy and Levins told his story so well. It's good reading because what Cochranesaid about family farm agriculture and the policies that would preserveand nurture it 40 years ago is still largely true today.

Before Kennedy came Eisenhower and his agriculture secretaryEzra Benson. Benson and Eisenhower believed the free market was the solutionto agriculture. Their rallying cry was get government out of agriculture.Cochrane, as well as his biographer Levins, make it clear they believethat policy was as bankrupt in the time of Eisenhower as it is in the waningyears of Freedom to Farm.

Levins book is useful in that it not only explores thelife and times of Willard Cochrane who is one of the most important thinkersin the agricultural policy arena in the last half of the century. The bookis important because the student, Levins, is willing to challenge someof his mentors ideas while at the same time praising the mentor. Levinstakes on the sacred cow of price and challenges the notion that farmerswill do better if they simply get a better price. How, he wonders, willanybody but the input suppliers and processors benefit from higher priceswhen farmers get less than a dime on the dollar for every sale. How canhigher prices put more money in a farmers pockets if the farmer's pocketshave holes in them, Levins wonders.

Levins take on agricultural technology together. Technology,Levins writes, is something Cochrane has privately been concerned aboutthroughout his career. At one point, when Cochrane was employed by theBureau of Agricultural Economics in the mid-1940s, he proposed a researchproject to investigate the problem of the impact of technological innovationson agriculture. The project never got off the ground because of the shiftingsand in Washington. But Cochrane eventually began to see farmer blind acceptanceof new technologies as a grinding treadmill. Levins has an entire chapterin his book entitled "The Treadmill".

Levins writing on Cochrane make for a team that givesthe hope for a viable family farm agriculture a small bright flame. Ifyou care about the family farm in America you should read Dick Levins bookon Willard Cochrane as soon as you can. After you've finished reading itpass the book on to your neighbor and then call your Congressman. Tellhim its time to get serious about protecting the family farm. Tell himif he wants to do something about it he should read Levins' book and thenput a call into Levins or Willard Cochrane. *I originally wrote the forThe Land Magazine