Agricultural Technophobia
I can understand why many Europeans and Americans on the far-left are against “frankenfood”, but if they stopped being so reflexively anti-GM everything, they could probably do a lot of good. For a good example of what I’m talking about, check out this article (link from Bob Harris)
- “It’s agricultural asbestos!” That ripe phrase is how one British farmer described the menu of genetically modified (GM) crops being offered by Monsanto, a food biotechnology company in the United Kingdom. It became a rallying cry for farmers and environmentalists across Britain seeking to keep GM seeds out of English soil. For its part, Monsanto, and the Blair government, dismissed such charges as the ravings of Luddites. But now, a three-year study by British scientists, commissioned by Blair’s own environment minister, Michael Meacher, reveals that the environmental risks of GM crops may be even greater than previously believed.
The Farm-Scale Evaluation study, conducted by the Royal Society, is the first large-scale field test of GM crops. It compared the biodiversity in fields planted with three GM crops — corn, sugar beet and oilseed rape — with the crop of similar non-GM crops in adjacent fields. The study found that the super-charged pesticides required to grow GM crops dealt a severe blow to local farmland wildlife species, killing bees, butterflies, insects, wildflowers and birds. The GM version of RoundUp is so potent that it kills almost every non-GM plant in its path, including non-GM versions of the crops themselves.
. . .
Monsanto, clearly on the run, says it’s abandoning Europe for now. Following Bill Clinton’s lead, Blair stocked his cabinet with Monsanto flacks and fought off attempts by the European Union to ban GM crops. The lone holdout in the Blair camp was Meacher, the environment minister, who vowed last year that the government would ban the crops if the studies produced negative results. But Blair sacked him last year, after Meacher publicly savaged Blair’s support of the Monsanto machine.
. . .
If there’s any hope for the company, it probably lies here in the United States rather than Europe. Americans don’t like the idea of eating GM food, but, thanks to an indifferent press, they also know next to nothing about it. A case in point: A recent survey by the Food Policy Institute at Rutgers University found that 75 percent of Americans believe that their palette has never been contaminated by GM foods. Yet, almost everyone in the United States has eaten lots of GM foods. It’s part of our daily diet. More 80 percent of processed foods contain some GM crops. “Americans have no idea that foods with genetically modified ingredients are already for sale in the U.S.,” says William Hallman, author of the Rutgers study. “But the bottom line is: If you eat processed foods, you’re probably eating GM ingredients.”It’s not just a matter of processed foods. A recent report from the Department of Agriculture shows that GM crops are rapidly monopolizing the fields of the farm belt. More than 80 percent of U.S. soybean fields are planted with GM seeds. Similarly, GM seeds account for nearly 75 percent of cotton and 40 percent of corn grown in the United States. One reason so many Americans remain ignorant about the prevalence of GM foods in the U.S. diet is that Monsanto and other biotech companies, with the help of the Clinton and Bush administrations, have fended off calls to label GM foods.
Now I’m strongly in favor of labeling GM foods. I think the idea of essentially tricking people into eating something they don’t want to is borderline criminal. That said, I still think the possibilities of GM food are endless.
The environmental concerns that have been raised about GM crops are valid, but the big complaint in the article above says “the GM version of RoundUp”. So it’s not the crops themselves that are the problem, but rather the pesticide. In a broader sense though, there are some problems with the crops themselves, as this study points out (also via Bob Harris) :
- Today eight scientific papers containing the results of the farm-scale evaluation of spring-sown crops (maize, beet and spring oilseed rape) have been published in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (Biological Sciences). The publication of these papers, following full peer-review, provides independent endorsement of the SSC’s view that the farm scale evaluations were designed and executed to a high standard. The SSC is content that these eight papers collectively have adequately addressed the null hypothesis under test: that, for each crop, the effect on the abundance and diversity of wildlife of the management of the GM crop does not differ from the effect of the management of the conventional equivalent. The null hypothesis was rejected in each case.
Growing conventional beet and spring rape was better for many groups of wildlife than growing GM herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) beet and spring rape. Some insect groups, such as bees (in beet crops) and butterflies (in beet and spring rape) , were recorded more frequently in and around the conventional crops because there were more weeds to provide food and cover. There were also more weed seeds in conventional beet and spring rape crops than in their GM counterparts. Such seeds are important in the diets of some animals, particularly some birds. However some groups of soil insects were found in greater numbers in GMHT beet and spring rape crops.
In contrast, growing GMHT maize was better for many groups of wildlife than conventional maize. There were more weeds in and around the GMHT maize crops, more butterflies and bees around at certain times of the year, and more weed seeds.
The environmental concern here wasn’t that the environment was being poisoned, it was that the GM crops and herbicide worked too well and killed so many weeds that it negatively affected the surrounding ecosystem. What’s also worth noting is that the GM corn was actually better than its conventional counterpart.
I think we’re at a crossroads here as far as GM food is concerned. Personally, I think the potential for GM products to solve the world’s famine problems is too great to be ignored. If impoverished areas like Ethiopia were provided with some GM vegetable seeds that could grow in sand with little water, it would do a hell of a lot more to help those people out than “We Are The World” ever did.
But as repeated testing (as well as government and corporate foot-dragging) has shown, we can’t reliably say whether or not many GM food products are safe. If I had my way, I would ensure that an international standard (perhaps enforced by the U.N. or WTO?) for testing and implementing GM crops was in place that followed these guidelines :
I’m sure I’m leaving out lots of stuff, but the point is that we can’t be scared of technological progress. Pragmatism is good, but outright revulsion doesn’t help anybody. Like it or not, GM is here to stay. What we should concentrate on is making sure that there are standards that ensure that GM foods are provided in an ethical and safe manner.
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The idea that we need GM crops to stop famine is one of the great myths of the world. There is enough food in the world to make sure that everyone has plenty of food. The problem is that in some countries they can’t afford to purchase said food. This is because in places like the US and Europe we put high tarifs on imports of food, and then give subsidies back to our farmers. This artifically keeps world wide prices high and makes it much more likely for you to eat food that was grown in your own country.
The only real benifit to GM foods is to big agri-buisness. They are able to patent the actual plants they grow. In time as they slowly take over the entire farming industry their strains of soybeans, corn, wheat, etc will be the only ones left meaning that if you want to grow corn; you have to come to them for the seeds because not doing so would be a patent violation.
In my opinion the giant agri-buisneses should be done away with and we should go back to sustainable organic farming and free range animal production. There really isn’t a downside to it, other than it’s harder for a large company to make a fortune off of.
Comment by andrew — November 17, 2003 @ 3:35 pm
well put andrew,
another thing the articles fail to point out is the reason they need such strong pesticides for GM foods- because genetically modified foods are so much weaker than what nature intended. they are so weak they can’t survive on their own. and thus, often not as good of a product as they should be (nutritionally or otherwise).
plus- those strong pesticides are getting into the crops and the foods that we eat. potentially causing more problems for us. not to mention the potential problems of introducing foods into an ecosystem that isn’t ready for it (like growing corn in the desert).
i agree there seem to be huge benefits for GM food feeding the world, but as andrew points out- it’s more of a problem caused by big-agro wanting to make huge profits off poor countries. and GM food only gives those businesses more ways of exploiting the starving people of this world.
Comment by tom — November 17, 2003 @ 7:56 pm
on a side note… did you know that TOMACCO actually exists? a genetically engineered crossbreeding of Tomatoes and Tobacco. that’s fucked up.
Comment by tom — November 17, 2003 @ 7:57 pm
right. there is enough food right fucking now to feed the entire world. without some socialist pipe dream, mind you.
i disagree with andrew only in the fact that the high tariffs we place on food do not get fed back to farmers, but agribusiness. you also forget to mention the other reason they can’t afford our food… they owe so much goddamn money to the imf they can’t afford ANYTHING. even bono knows this. and if anyone thinks that if the world just accepts gm foods that these big businesses are going to just benevolently bestow these “gifts” to starving third world countries as you might believe from the adm commercials, well, all i can say is look at us phamacuticals and the african aids epidemic and you have your answer. same script.
greg, you post two articles via bob harris that point out exactly why gm foods are bad and use it as reason why those on the left should stop being knee-jerk against them. this just plain makes no sense.
first off, there is such a thing as a “crunchy conservative.” this reffers to the granola eating organic loving sustainable minded person that is even pro us farmer and veri anti-agribusiness. they just ally themselves with the right because they think government is robbing them blind, and/or they’re christian and/or they hate immigrants or whatever. this is a very real group. do a google search for
“crunchy conservative”.
also, gm foods and thier harm for the ecosystem is the problem AND the thought of more roundup(tm) in the ecosystyem and it’s effects is the problem. its not an either/or situation. plus, owning the rights to the seed AND the pesticide is a little eerie to me which leads to…
the patents. andrew, it is indeed eerie to think that monsanto and adm and the like want to own patents on foods so that when new ecosystems arise you can only grow thier brand of seed, but ponder this… with cross pollonation forcing these changes into other, non-monsanto whores gardens, they could just march up on his/her crop, find the genetic strain has invaded and demand compensation for growing monsanto shit.
doesn’t this scare anyone? or am i being a knee-jerk liberal here?
Comment by josh — November 17, 2003 @ 8:45 pm
it should be noted that Monsanto sues farmers who plant the seeds harvested from GM crops.
They call it “seed piracy”. I shit ye not.
They’re trying to work the law so that they can get farmers to have to buy new seeds every planting season, something they’d only have to do in abnormal circumstances with regular crops.
Comment by JoeF — November 17, 2003 @ 8:52 pm
Josh,
That actually has already happened. A farmer’s field was cross polinated with a GM crop. The farmer harvested his food and kept seeds for next year. He then replanted his seeds and agribuisness came in and made him either destroy his crop or pay licenses to them for planting their patented seeds.
Don’t get me started on patent law though, I think that might be the most screwed up part of our government. The idea that you can patent a living thing, patent and idea, or patent a method of doing buisness is scarey. Imagine how much different the world would be if Henry Ford had been able to patent the assembly line.
Comment by andrew — November 18, 2003 @ 7:54 am
I’m responding to a few posts here, so forgive me if this jumps around a bit.
The idea that we need GM crops to stop famine is one of the great myths of the world.
Tell that to the people of Zambia. There are people starving to death there that were so frightened by the anti-GM rhetoric of the EU that they were convinced that a batch of corn that America was donating was “poison”. Nevermind the fact that the corn was only partially GM or that it’s the same corn that we Americans have been eating for years. Having bought into the hysterical fear fed to them by anti-GM people, they figured it’s better to starve to death than eat the “poison” corn.
plus- those strong pesticides are getting into the crops and the foods that we eat. potentially causing more problems for us.
That isn’t just a GM problem. DDT and Agent Orange caused a lot more health problems than GM foods ever have.
it is indeed eerie to think that monsanto and adm and the like want to own patents on foods so that when new ecosystems arise you can only grow thier brand of seed
I totally agree. I think the idea of big agri-business monopolizing any plant is totally evil and that’s why I included the bit about patent buyback. But the other side of the coin is that these big business have a right to the innovations that they come up with. I think it should be handled similarly to the way pharmaceuticals are done (without all the bullshit loopholes that pharm companies use to squash competition). For example, if an agri-business comes up with a strain of tomato that doesn’t need any pesticides, then I see no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed a limited (5-10 yrs. max) patent on their innovation. But if they come up with something that has the potential to really solve some hunger crises, the government should definitely have the ability to buy out their patent and distribute the seeds as quickly as possible.
My problem with the many of the anti-GM forces is that they want an outright ban, which (as you probably guess) I think is an awful idea. I definitely think there should be heavy regulation on both the scientific and business sides to make sure that there’s no potential harm to the environment or the people and animals that consume the GM products. But to turn your back on an entire branch of scientific study is stupid.
We’ve been genetically modifying plants for centuries. Until the last thirty years or so, it’s been through traditional methods of cross breeding and we’ve never had any problems. Hell, it we even ended up creating some new plants like broccoli and boysenberries. Or course, nobody refers to broccoli as “frankenfood” though. It’s only fairly recently that this has been done more in test tubes than in gardens.
Like it or not, GM is here to stay. If you feel passionately about it, you would be much better off fighting to ensure that GM plants are properly tested and not abused by big businesses. Fighting for a blanket ban based more on fear than scientific evidence is as bad as the Republican Congress passing a knee-jerk ban on all human cloning without considering all the great things that could come out of it.
For a sober and reasoned view of GM debate, check out this excerpt from a letter sent to Prince Charles by biologist Richard Dawkins (or click here to read the whole thing) :
My own passionate concern for world stewardship is as emotional as yours. But where I allow feelings to influence my aims, when it comes to deciding the best method of achieving them I’d rather think than feel. And thinking, here, means scientific thinking. No more effective method exists. If it did, science would incorporate it.
Next, Sir, I think you may have an exaggerated idea of the naturalness of ‘traditional’ or ‘organic’ agriculture. Agriculture has always been unnatural. Our species began to depart from our natural hunter-gatherer lifestyle as recently as 10,000 years ago - too short to measure on the evolutionary timescale.
Wheat, be it ever so wholemeal and stoneground, is not a natural food for Homo sapiens. Nor is milk, except for children. Almost every morsel of our food is genetically modified - admittedly by artificial selection not artificial mutation, but the end result is the same. A wheat grain is a genetically modified grass seed, just as a pekinese is a genetically modified wolf. Playing God? We’ve been playing God for centuries!
The large, anonymous crowds in which we now teem began with the agricultural revolution, and without agriculture we could survive in only a tiny fraction of our current numbers. Our high population is an agricultural (and technological and medical) artifact. It is far more unnatural than the population-limiting methods condemned as unnatural by the Pope. Like it or not, we are stuck with agriculture, and agriculture - all agriculture - is unnatural. We sold that pass 10,000 years ago.
Does that mean there’s nothing to choose between different kinds of agriculture when it comes to sustainable planetary welfare? Certainly not. Some are much more damaging than others, but it’s no use appealing to ‘nature’, or to ‘instinct’ in order to decide which ones. You have to study the evidence, soberly and reasonably - scientifically. Slashing and burning (incidentally, no agricultural system is closer to being ‘traditional’) destroys our ancient forests. Overgrazing (again, widely practised by ‘traditional’ cultures) causes soil erosion and turns fertile pasture into desert. Moving to our own modern tribe, monoculture, fed by powdered fertilisers and poisons, is bad for the future; indiscriminate use of antibiotics to promote livestock growth is worse.
Incidentally, one worrying aspect of the hysterical opposition to the possible risks from GM crops is that it diverts attention from definite dangers which are already well understood but largely ignored. The evolution of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria is something that a Darwinian might have foreseen from the day antibiotics were discovered. Unfortunately the warning voices have been rather quiet, and now they are drowned by the baying cacophony: ‘GM GM GM GM GM GM!’
Comment by greg — November 18, 2003 @ 1:17 pm
As an aside, this book review cracked me up :
As is so often the case with questions like these, the answer is somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, most people don?t really know enough about the subject to understand the debate or take an appropriate position. Instead, we too often see one side yelling at the other, and vice versa.
Alan McHughen, who works in the field of genetically modified plants, decided that enough was enough. He doesn?t like what he?s seeing and wants people to be able to make informed decisions. As a step in that direction, he wrote the new book, Pandora?s Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Foods (Oxford University Press, $25).
How bad is the public?s misunderstanding of this field? McHughen cites recent surveys in Great Britain showing that only 40% of respondents correctly said that ordinary tomatoes contain genes. The rest either didn?t know, or thought that the average tomato somehow did without the genetic material that is present in every living thing. Similarly, he relates a story of how an activist in Belgium got into an argument at a summit about genetically modified plants, and stormed out yelling, “You?ll never convince me to eat DNA!”
Comment by greg — November 18, 2003 @ 1:21 pm
Genetic modification through selection and gentic modification through splicing are currently two very different things. Every gene that is in non GM corn now was in corn when it was first domesticated. All we’ve done is bring to the front the genes we’re concerned with. On the other hand with GM foods it is possible to insert the DNA of a toad into corn. There is no way that could ever happen naturally.
Sure you can make the point that all agriculture is unnatural. You can also make the point that the average person in a hunter gather society has a better life than the average person in an agraian society. What we can’t expect to happen though is for us to return to being hunter gathers. So we have to minimize the enviornmental impacts of farming. Agribuisness is some of the worst things to ever happen to the enviornment and public health. GM foods only serve to benifit agribuisness. Therefore GM foods are not a good thing for society.
Take this example. Company B creates a new strain of corn. Within 20 years 99% of the corn farmers in the country are growing it. This strain of corn does not produce fertile offspring, therefore every year all the farmers have to purchase their seeds from Company B. Finally Company B’s patent is about to run out. They then stop producing this corn, and begin selling a slightly modified version that they have also patented. Every farmer growing the old stuff is forced to switch to the new corn and continue paying the patent fees. A new company could start producing the original corn, but the start up costs to building the factory is very high, and no one wants to incur that cost. So 99% if the farmers continue to grow the corn from Company B. Now a new corn disease appears that only seems to affect corn with a certain gene. it just so happens that it’s one of the genes that has been inserted into Company B’s corn. since 99% of the corn is now genetically identical a whole corn crop is wiped out.
Comment by andrew — November 18, 2003 @ 2:49 pm
Agribuisness is some of the worst things to ever happen to the enviornment and public health. GM foods only serve to benifit agribuisness. Therefore GM foods are not a good thing for society.
While I disagree with your huge jumps in reasoning, what would you suggest is the best (and most practical) way to fix this problem? I think heavy regulation and testing along with limited patents could exacerbate these problems.
What do you hate more agri-business or genetic modification? Although the two are closely related, they are separate issues.
Take this example. Company B creates a new strain of corn. Within 20 years 99% of the corn farmers in the country are growing it. This strain of corn does not produce fertile offspring, therefore every year all the farmers have to purchase their seeds from Company B.
Ummm…this already happened with hybrid corn back in the thirties :
Farmers had mixed feelings about hybrids. The main feature of hybrid corn was that it doubled a farmer’s yield. This was attractive on the surface, but when hybrids were being developed in the 1920s, there already was so much corn on the market that farmers burned corn for fuel. It was not until the drought of the mid-1930s, which destroyed most traditional open-pollinated corn, that farmers were induced to buy hybrids. Second, farmers were accustomed to saving corn kernels from their harvest for planting the next year’s crop, and would buy corn only once in a while to “freshen” their own corn. Hybrids, because of their narrow genetic base, would not produce well 2 years in a row, and so farmers had to buy all the seed they wanted to plant each year. Further, hybrid corn was about three times more expensive than fresh, open-pollinated corn.
In the 80 or so years since the introduction of hybrid corn, it’s been a huge success :
About 95 percent of our corn acreage now is planted to hybrid corn. We produce at least 20 percent more corn on 25 percent fewer acres than in 1930, when seed of hybrid corn became available in quantity to American farmers.
So 95 percent of the corn that’s grown here already has to re-buy their seeds every year. Sure, it’s an added cost, but it’s much more resistant to environmental hazards that can wipe out entire crops.
Finally Company B’s patent is about to run out. They then stop producing this corn, and begin selling a slightly modified version that they have also patented. Every farmer growing the old stuff is forced to switch to the new corn and continue paying the patent fees. A new company could start producing the original corn, but the start up costs to building the factory is very high, and no one wants to incur that cost.
I really doubt that. There’s so much money to be made by agri-businesses that I’m sure somebody would step up and keep producing the older strain.
Now a new corn disease appears that only seems to affect corn with a certain gene. it just so happens that it’s one of the genes that has been inserted into Company B’s corn. since 99% of the corn is now genetically identical a whole corn crop is wiped out.
You’re really taking liberties here. Do you seriously think that a mysterious corn disease is more likely to happen than, say, a bug infestation or a drought that wipes out entire crops of non-GM/hybrid corn? If anything, the most serious complaint that I’ve heard about GM crops is that they’re too strong, which I addressed with the second point in my original post.
Comment by greg — November 18, 2003 @ 3:53 pm
I think we should just open up McDonalds franchises in developing countries for all those hungry people. Seriously, though, if starvation had anything to do with the amount of food being produced, would there still be people right here in the U.S. going hungry?
Comment by mona — November 19, 2003 @ 10:15 am
Greg, I’ll tell it to the people of Zambia. GMOs are not going to end your famine! Even if they come in on a boat for free, or you get the seeds to plant for free, or they just genetically modify each and every one of you so you can live on a diet of Monsanto soybeans, thus cutting food costs significantly.
Malnutrition and famine will not be “solved,” or even significantly affected, by Geneticaly modified food. In Zambia’s case the problem is our attempt to shove GMOs down the world’s throat. If we were so concerned with feeding Zambia, we should have thought a little about what we are doing to our food supply.
The problems of the third world are legion but are cultural, political, and market problems. The problem is not a need for better crops.
Over the last twenty years the number of ingenious solutions to this percieved, but relatively minor problem(the supposed inadequacey of current crop strains), is simply off the charts. Special fish, hybrids, all kinds of agricultural innovations and limited experiments in sustainable agriculture have been and are being tried. The proponents of GMOs are quite right when they say that there is nothing substantially different in their mission and that of the agricultural innovators who have gone before them. But this just begs the question; if we are diong this to help poor farmers, and it didn’t work before, why should we try it again, with a much greater downside risk?
The solution to Third-world poverty is not to be found in the panacea of GMOs. The solutions are much more complicated and require a lot of political will and some uncomfortable choices. As long as the public stays fixated on GMOs that probably wont happen.
I agree with most of your recomendations, Greg. Sciece has its own perogatives, and some dispensation should be made to allow continued research. But it should be heavily regulated, and we should always assume the technology is guilty until proven innocent. So I think we may disagree a little.
Comment by JoeW — November 19, 2003 @ 2:05 pm
Also, vis-a-vis Josh, my brother-in-law is a “crunchy conervative” and a great guy, as far as right-wing libertarians go.
Comment by JoeW — November 19, 2003 @ 2:10 pm
In Zambia’s case the problem is our attempt to shove GMOs down the world’s throat.
“shove”?? It was my understanding that the U.S.’s offer was a reaction to a serious famine. Since when is an offer of help seen as an attempt to force feed someone? Sure, it wouldn’t have cured all their problems, but the partially-GM corn could have helped thousands of people. Considering that it’s the same corn that we’ve all been eating, I have a hard time believing that their refusal of the offer was based on anything more than ignorance and fear.
And that’s ultimately my problem with those who want to ban GM products. It’s not based on scientific evidence, it’s based on hypothetical situations and shameless appeals to emotion and fear. I largely agree with all the “What if’s” that are used in arguments by GM opponents, but a blanket ban on an entire field of scientific study is ignorant, unrealistic, and indicative of the kind of anti-intellectualism that seems to define the Bush Administration.
As far as I’m concerned, the anti-GM debate is the left’s version of the human cloning debate. Human cloning opponents are fond of conjuring images of science-fiction fantasies where human clones are treated like slaves, fetuses are genetically modified in the womb to be “perfect”, and mad scientists do their best to clone people like Hitler and Stalin, but in the end it’s mostly hyperbole and little substance. Yes, there are some real ethical questions that need to be answered when we talk about cloning human beings, but those questions aren’t being addressed.
Instead, Congress quickly passed a blanket ban on all human cloning and that was the end of it. What about scientists who want to clone stem cells in order to help study disease? Or fertility researchers who want to help use this as another tool for infertile couples to conceive (not unlike “test tube babies”)? Sorry scientific community! The Luddites have spoken.
Which brings me back to the GM debate. Corporate abuse of plant strain patents, GM crop farmers overusing pesticides, food labeling, and potential harmful side-effects to humans or the environment are all very important issues that need to be addressed. But the best way to do that is to address those issues and stop acting like “GM = Evil”.
Comment by greg — November 19, 2003 @ 3:38 pm
One short and simle comment to those who hail GM as gods gift to all of us.
You have a choice of two restaurants to take your 10 year old son for his birthday.
1) Restaurant GE / GM - The menu at this restaurant consists purely of food made out of GM and GE foods
2) Restaurant home grown - The menu at this restaurant consists of food that is 100% GE / GM free and most of it has been grown naturally in some cases even home grown
Which one would you pick to take your kid to ?
My guess is you picked choice 2. Why ?
The only reason I moved to New Zealand is because it is 100% GE free
Why is it that the richer supporters of GE / GM are found shopping exclusively in the organic sections of the supermarkets ? Well thanks to them most of cannot afford the organic producs any more.
Why is it that today 90% of all wheat grown in europe is one strain of the crop. So in other words one desease would wipe out the entire crop whereas before it would have just affected one or more strains.
Final question is why were morons put on this planet. But I guess there is no answer to that.
Comment by Tikiri Wicks — November 23, 2003 @ 7:50 pm
“And that’s ultimately my problem with those who want to ban GM products. It’s not based on scientific evidence, it’s based on hypothetical situations and shameless appeals to emotion and fear.”
but that’s not what we’ve been arguing here- the main concern of almost everyone on this comment section is that they don’t want the big GM corporations coming into a country and forcing them to take Monsanto’s product and not being allowed to use any other product. they do it in the form of “aid” but really they are forcing these starving countries to become dependent on a mega-corporation who has no interest in giving “aid” (except that it might look good as a tax right-off for the company) but are interested in making a country dependent on their product.
Comment by tom — November 24, 2003 @ 11:18 am
i know it’s actually “write-off” i’m not retarded.
Comment by tom — November 24, 2003 @ 11:19 am
but that’s not what we’ve been arguing here
Well, that’s what I’ve been arguing here since my initial post. Many on the Anti-GM side (including the EU) want an outright ban of GM products. I think that’s a retarded idea.
As I’ve said before, I’m all for labeling, increased testing and regulation, and a breakup of corporate monopolies, but when the discussion turns to bans, count me out.
they do it in the form of “aid” but really they are forcing these starving countries to become dependent on a mega-corporation who has no interest in giving “aid” (except that it might look good as a tax right-off for the company) but are interested in making a country dependent on their product.
How does accepting a gift make them “dependent”?
By the way, the donation didn’t come from Monsanto, it came from the United Nations’ World Food Programme
Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 11:40 am
“How does accepting a gift make them “dependent”? ”
to quote andrew from above:
“The only real benifit to GM foods is to big agri-buisness. They are able to patent the actual plants they grow. In time as they slowly take over the entire farming industry their strains of soybeans, corn, wheat, etc will be the only ones left meaning that if you want to grow corn; you have to come to them for the seeds because not doing so would be a patent violation.”
to quote josh from above:
” it is indeed eerie to think that monsanto and adm and the like want to own patents on foods so that when new ecosystems arise you can only grow thier brand of seed,”
and to quote YOU from above:
“On the one hand, if the companies don’t get some sort of profit, they won’t be inclined to continue development, but on the other hand this whole “Sorry, you people are going to have to starve for another 30 years while we still hold our patent”"
Comment by tom — November 24, 2003 @ 11:51 am
To quote from the article about Zambia’s famine :
“The Zambian Government has finally decided not to accept a donation of genetically modified food for nearly three million of its people facing famine.”
This has nothing to do with seed.
Comment by greg — November 24, 2003 @ 11:58 am