Roe's presentation will be part of the "Preaching Free Trade, Practicing Protectionism" symposium at the AAAS meeting. Ronald Phillips, Regents Professor of Agronomy and Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota, will also speak; his topic is "Are GMOs [genetically modified organisms] Safe?"
Roe argues that institutional reform in less developed countries is shown to be the major factor causing an increase in their economic growth. Since trade barriers erected by the United States and the European Union are a major barrier to institutional reform and therefore growth, U.S. policies ultimately help keep these countries poor.
Phillips will discuss several topics, including trade disputes between Europe and the United States; evolution of resistance to pesticides made by GMO crops; the extent of GMO crop plantings worldwide; patenting and labelling issues; the role of genetics in increasing food production; and biosafety protocols. He will also discuss current scientific work, such as projects to sequence the corn genome and research aimed at learning to insert genes into chromosomes in a precise manner.
The symposium will be moderated by a third University of Minnesota professor, G. Edward Schuh, who organized the event.
Terry Roe is director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Political Economy, co-director of the university's Economic Development Center and an adjunct member of the university's Humphrey Institute o
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Contact: Deane Morrison
morri029@umn.edu
612-624-2346
University of Minnesota
14-Feb-2004