Is Shameless O’Milne on holiday or something? Another reasonable and sensible comment piece in the Groan.

The potential value of
GM crops was highlighted earlier this year with the publication of the
results of a Chinese study that demonstrated a 10% increase in yield
for farms that planted an insect-resistant GM variety of rice.

In
a typically Chinese understatement, Professor Jikun Huang, the director
of the Centre for Chinese Agricultural Policy at the Chinese Academy of
Sciences, said: "The performance of insect-resistant GM rice in trials
has been impressive." Not only were yields up, but the use of
pesticides dropped by 80% and farmers reported a dramatic reduction in
pesticide-related health problems.
…

Of course, many aid
organisations – often heavily influenced by western green campaigns –
have attacked the emphasis on GM technology, calling it a "technical
fix" that does little to address the real social and economic causes of
world poverty and hunger.

They
said the same several decades ago when widespread famine was predicted
to follow a population explosion. The population explosion materialised
but the famine didn’t. The reason was that while others argued for
social reform, pioneering plant breeders launched the green revolution
and saved millions from starvation. The Human Development Report 2001,
commissioned by the United Nations development programme, concluded
that "many developing countries might reap great benefits from
genetically modified food crops and other organisms".

What the hell’s happening here? Am I actually reading the Guardian? Has someone hacked the site or something, slipping in a few TCS pieces?