Resistance relaxes to modified grain
Overdue!
Genetically modified soybean harvest in Brazil
Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops…
In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistance to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment…
Even in Europe, where opposition to what the Europeans call Frankenfoods has been fiercest, some prominent government officials and business executives are calling for faster approvals of imports of genetically modified crops. They are responding in part to complaints from livestock producers, who say they might suffer a critical shortage of feed if imports do not accelerate.
In Britain, the National Beef Association, which represents cattle farmers, issued a statement this month demanding that “all resistance” to such crops “be abandoned immediately in response to shifts in world demand for food, the growing danger of global food shortages and the prospect of declining domestic animal production.”
Most of the “resistance” to genetically modified crops is political and cultural. It’s been perfectly acceptable to refuse to examine scientific studies if they don’t cater to peoples’ fears. Fears, after all, of what our governments and corporations might do in the name of profit.
Those fears aren't imaginary. The dangers of careless government and greedy agribusiness are no less; but, the useful way to oppose and manage those dangers is not through spooky, anti-scientific mobilizations.
Posted: Sat - April 26, 2008 at 10:22 AM