There's little doubt that some GM crops produce higher yields than some conventional crops, or that theycan be modified to contain more nutrients, though both of these developments have been over-hyped. Twoprojects have been cited everywhere: a sweet potato being engineered in Kenya to resist viruses, and vitaminA-enhanced rice. The first scheme has just collapsed. Despite $6m of funding from Monsanto, the World Bank andthe US government, and endless hype in the press, it turns out to have produced no improvement in virusresistance, and a decrease in yield. [4] Just over the border in Uganda, a far cheaper conventional breedingprogramme has almost doubled sweet potato yields. The other, never more than a concept, now turns out not towork even in theory: malnourished people appear not to be able to absorb vitamin A in this form.5 But none ofthis stops Lord Taverne, or George Bush, or the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, from citing them as miraclecures for global hunger.