Anti-GMO activists, like the multi-national group Green­­­peace, often proclaim that they oppose biotechnology and GMO crops because they want to protect small-scale indigen­ous farmers, as well as the environment, from large-multi-national agribusiness companies. But the groups’ actions often don’t match their rhetoric, according to a Cornell University official who spoke recently in Des Moines.

A good example: The actions by Greenpeace and other groups that virtually killed a promising biotech papaya experiment program in Thailand, says Sarah Dav­idson Evanega, senior associate director of international programs at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"It was really the smaller farmers who were hurt by this," said Evanega, who spoke at the Des Moines Science Center during the recent...