Feed the hungry.

As head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), I would like to respond to the January Margin Notes, "Heed the hungry" by Kevin Clarke. I am deeply concerned about Clarke's misinformation and the inflammatory nature of his piece. Neither is in the spirit of corporal works of mercy.

U.S. food aid is not, and should not be, a route to promoting biotechnology. But neither should anti-biotechnology interest hijack the tragic situation of the famine in southern Africa.

First, Clarke accuses the United States of dumping bioengineered corn on Africa because no one else wants it. This is patently untrue. U.S. corn supplies were so tight, due to reduced production resulting from drought, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which procures grain for food aid, had to obtain a special humanitarian waiver to buy corn for food aid.

Secondly, Clarke suggests that bioengineered corn in food aid will take over African agriculture and place African farmers at the mercy of multinational corporations. Corn grown in the U.S. and sent as U.S. food aid is neither well adapted to grow under African conditions nor an acceptable food of southern Africans except in times of hardship. In eastern and southern Africa, where people prefer white corn, yellow corn has the stigma of being "famine food."

The U.S. government has provided the best food we grow, that which we ourselves eat. We have respected the decision of Zambia's president to refuse our food aid, and we are still providing what alternative commodities we can.

Finally, last year the Vatican's own Pontifical Academy of Sciences concluded, "There is nothing intrinsic about genetic modification that would cause food products to be unsafe."

In the long run, biotechnology may be one of the tools that helps African nations develop their own indigenous agricultural and food systems such that famine is just a distant memory. In the meantime, there is no possible justification for making biotechnology an obstacle in feeding the hungry--something which our nation, blessed with great abundance, is called to do.

Andrew S. Natsios, Administrator

U.S. Agency for International Development

Washington, D. C.