LETTERS: BIOTECH CROPS HAVE ADVANTAGES AROUND THE WORLD

To the editor:

The weeks leading up to spring planting is the time when farmers make key decisions that go a long way in determining what kind of year 2001 will be for our farms and families. One of the decisions I'm most confident about is my selection and use of biotechnology seed. Biotech crops have proven to be beneficial not just to farmers, but to everyone in the food chain, including consumers.

Biotech products help me do an even better job of doing what I do best: providing my family and families around the world the most economical and highest quality supply of food and fiber possible. Biotech products help deliver environmental benefits by allowing farmers to use pesticides more precisely and more efficiently. These products also make it easier to use production practices that better protect critical natural resources.

Scientists are working on innovations such as hardier, healthier crops that could help developing nations better feed their people, crops that deliver more vitamins and nutrients, edible vaccines that could be delivered through a simple piece of fruit like a banana and, perhaps most encouraging, golden rice, which could provide a healthful solution to the disease problems vitamin-A deficiency causes in developing nations.

When I go into my fields this spring, I'll do so with the confidence that biotechnology is helping me plant seeds of promise and hope not only for today, but tomorrow as well.

MIKE and NANCY REIMINGER

Chaffee, Mo.