There’s enough food foreveryone, but the poorcan’t afford to buy itSir — The existence of malnourished andhungry people has been used repeatedly inthis journal and elsewhere as a justificationfor biotechnology and for the productionof more food1,2. This assumption supportsa main policy plank of the RockefellerFoundation food biotechnologyprogramme2 and other major interna-tional and charitable institutions.

Yet there are good reasons to besceptical of the equation “more foodequals less hunger”.

The world produces more than enoughfood at present to feed everyone, but never-theless many people still starve or are mal-nourished1–3. As economist and Nobel lau-reate Amartya Sen has pointed out, it ispoverty, not a physical shortage of food,that is the primary cause of hunger in themodern world4.

The political and economic reasons don’tchange: the amount of food that Ireland, forexample, exported to Britain during thepotato famine of 1845–46 would have beensufficient to feed those who starved. The rootcause of the 1974 Bangladesh famine was aflood that displaced people from their jobs;more food was produced that year inBangladesh than in surrounding years, yet— unable to earn money to buy it — up to1.5 million people starved to death4.

Partial solutions such as local produc-tion of food, as suggested by Conway andToenniessen2, cannot circumvent econom-ic reality. Even the World Bank has conclud-ed that the problem of hunger can only besolved by “redistributing purchasingpower” to the hungry5.

What about the state of food supplies in, say, 2040, when it is predicted that therewill be ten billion people compared withtoday’s six billion? In absolute terms, theworld already produces enough food tofeed ten billion people — it’s just that most of it is fed to animals (this accounts for 80% of all arable crops in the UnitedStates, a figure close to the world average6).If the area of arable land devoted to cropsfor human consumption were doubled to 40%, this need not drastically affect sup-plies of meat or dairy produce, since farmanimals also eat other, non-crop foods such as grass in the summer, silage and hay in the winter.

Clearly, what is missing is the “purchasing power” of the poor.Jonathan R. Latham25 Barrack Road, Exeter, Devon EX2 5ED, UK

1. Trewavas, A. Nature 402, 231–232 (1999).

2. Conway, G. & Toenniessen, G. Nature 402,

Supplement C55–C58 (1999).

3. Simms, A. Selling Suicide: Farming, False Promises and

Genetic Engineering in Developing Countries (Christian Aid,

London, 1999).

4. Sen, A. K. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and

Deprivation (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1983).

5. World Bank. Food Security for the World (statement prepared

for the World Food Summit, 1996).

6. Agriculture Statistical Yearbook (Eurostat, Luxembourg, 1996).

Spanish university studyignores researchSir — As Xavier Bosch reports (Nature 402,848; 1999), the recently publicized rankingof Spanish universities by quality may notbe the first such list, but it has had by farthe most impact on Spain’s mass media.The repercussions are likely to encouragethe growth of an evaluation culture inSpanish universities, which is positive.However, I believe the importance of thisstudy has been exaggerated and peoplehave made judgements without evaluatingthe 71 indicators used by the authors.

I do not see what factors such as “age ofthe university” or “percentage of womenamong first-year students” can reveal aboutthe quality of an institution (even thoughthey favoured my university: it is 505 yearsold and more than two-thirds of its stu-dents are women). I did not find any indica-tor of research quality and there was noevaluation of scientific papers published inleading journals. Nor were patents, con-tracts or research projects considered.

Given that a university carries out bothteaching and research, I estimate that thisstudy has done only half the work.Jorge Mira-Pérez Department of Applied Physics, University ofSantiago de Compostela, E-15706 Santiago deCompostela, Spain

Not too late to apologizeSir — The editorial “Hollow apologiesshould be avoided” (Nature 403, 813;2000) gives a correct account of the effortsof the Max Planck Society (MPS) toexplore the history of its predecessor, theKaiser Wilhelm Society, during the Naziperiod. It discusses MPS president HubertMarkl’s statement that it is not within themoral authority of those who did not takepart in Nazi experiments to apologize onbehalf of those who committed thesecrimes. It suggests apologies may be due,rather, for the MPS’s ignoring of the issueuntil quite recently.

The MPS can agree with this. However,President Markl has already publiclyapologized. In 1998, at a ceremony for thefiftieth anniversary of the society’sfoundation, he said: “I consider it my dutyto offer a public apology for that which the

Max Planck Society may have failed to doin the face of its responsibility for theconsequences of its prehistory during theThird Reich — even were it only that theSociety has done too little to explore thisprehistory for too long.” In the samespeech, Markl condemned the actions ofGerman scientists against Jewish and othervictims of the terrible Nazi past in moredetail. The full text is on the Internet(http://www.mpg.de/jubilae_e.htm).

The question of public statements tosurvivors can only be decided after theindependent commission of historians hasgiven its advice to the president. But theMax Planck Society is grateful for thischance to let your readers know that it hasacted — though maybe regrettably late —exactly as advised in your editorial.Bernd WirsingMax Planck Society, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft,Postfach 10 10 62, 80084 München, Germany

DoE still involved in theHuman Genome ProjectSir — I would like to correct the erroneousimpression given by the News article “USenergy agency pulls plug on role in genomeproject” (Nature 404, 4; 2000). TheDepartment of Energy (DoE) is not pullingthe plug on its role in this importantproject. As part of the international humangenome project, DoE is responsible fordetermining the DNA sequence of humanchromosomes 5, 16 and 19.

DoE’s commitment to completing thisproject has not changed: we will deliver, aspromised, a working draft sequence ofthese three chromosomes in 2000 and theircomplete, high-quality sequence by 2003.We will continue to coordinate our humanDNA sequencing efforts with our partners:the National Human Genome ResearchInstitute at the National Institutes ofHealth and the Wellcome Trust in the UK.

Obtaining a complete, high-qualitysequence of human DNA is only one of thegoals of the Human Genome Project. TheDoE biological and environmental researchadvisory committee (BERAC) has beenasked to identify the next most importantcontributions it can make in other goalsand is already investing in the developmentof the tools needed to exploit fully the valueof knowing the complete DNA sequence ofthe human and other organisms.

DoE will continue its sequencing effortsin model organisms, including the mouseand various microbes, whose DNA sequenceinformation contributes to DoE missionsin bioremediation and carbon sequestration.James F. DeckerOffice of Science, Department of Energy,Washington, DC 20585, USA

correspondence

222 NATURE | VOL 404 | 16 MARCH 2000 | www.nature.com© 2000 Macmillan Magazines Ltd