In response, Jack Heinemann, a scientist in New Zealand who works on GMO risk assessment, suggests that this disease is a symptom of a larger problem:

Unsupported farmers, genetic uniformity, poor soils, and lack of water are what cause vulnerability to epidemics. But funding for farmer education and agricultural technologies that address these root causes of epidemics withers in favor of “solutions” with stronger patent potential. As a result, poor farmers are set up to be rescued by genetic engineering from what should be avoidable catastrophes.

Small farmers who accept GM plants become dependent and need to pay big corporations for chemicals and seed, Heinemann says. In other words, poverty and monoculture are the real problems. But in Africa, Ronald retorts, banana monoculture is rare, and:

African farmers access banana plantlets from national, nonprofit institutions — they are not dependent on U.S. multinational companies. The banana research in Africa is funded by local, nonprofit, public institutions. The new banana varieties are not grown from imported seeds. And GE bananas are not patented. The technology is simple and does not require farmers to alter their traditional practices.

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Here, as before, I’m left wanting more: A couple more rebuttals and I could better tell who was dodging the facts.

I sure wish the Boston Review had focused on debate, and had the participants go a few more rounds. Still, the rest of the forum is worth reading if you are looking for a well-organized (if mostly unchallenged) series of arguments in favor of GM food.