美國英語聽力80篇1 Lesson17
17) Genetic Engineering
Last month, delegates from more than one-hundred nations approved the first international treaty
about trade in products made by processes of genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering involves changing the genes of living organisms.
The new agreement did not end the worldwide debate about genetically-engineered crops, however.
Four agricultural experts discussed the issue at a recent conference in Washington, D.C.
Gordon Conway is an ecologist and president of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Mister Conway said he believes genetically-engineered foods might help to end world hunger.
But he says the risks from such crops are important to consider.
Mister Conway says the issue is whether some genes may accidentally spread to other living things.
He says this could lead to the creation of strong plants or insects with a resistance to the treated crops.
He also is concerned about the effect of genetically-engineered plants on the soil.
Patrick Holden is director of the Soil Association of the United Kingdom,
a British group that supports the idea of chemical-free agriculture.
He told the conference that his group's opposition to genetic engineering has been growing since the early 1990s.
He says this opposition is based on possible threats to the environment and human health.
He also says the technology denies choice to producers and consumers and is not necessary in developing countries.
However, a leading Kenyan environmentalist dismissed the idea that developing countries do not need genetically-engineered crops.
Calestous Juma is director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mister Juma says genetic engineering could help improve crops and people's diets and increase money for farmers.
It could also help end hunger and reduce the number of poor people in developing countries.
He says many nations already have policies for using the technologies in a safe way.
Wes Jackson of the Land Institute in the state of Kansas says some good could result from genetic engineering research.
But he says most efforts to redesign plants probably would fail.
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