Mon, 29 Nov 2004

Study finds benefits in GM crops

How depressing ... no, not the study, or even it's results, which are perfectly valid. It's just that the scientific community is missing the point: again.

Why would they test a hypothesis that GM crops would reduce weed diversity? Spraying herbicides reduces weeds - not GM crops, although the latter will allow the former to be used in greater strength/quantity. I'd never heard of this concern about GM crops.

The problem with GM crops isn't that they produce poison food, either. That's been pretty conclusively proven. The problem is cross contamination - and this has been conclusively demonstrated in court, of all places. It's not rocket science, it's simple common sense. Once GM crops become the norm, they take over by default. How their success will effect future crops of non-GM'd seed is anybody's guess: but you can bet that the companies responsible for them will be there enforcing their "intellectual property".

Another thing you can count on: when the twenty year patent on these plants expires, they'll get tweaked, like prescription drugs do when their patents face expiration. Or perhaps, if the modification makes the use of herbicides possible, the company will change the herbicide once the patent on the plant expires: they do manufacture both, after all.

This could potentially be the death knell for the small, non-corporate farmer, as well as the naturally developed plant breeds developed over millenia of farmer experiments and plantings. Is this what we really want or need? I don't think so.

A major UK study of genetically modified plants finds no evidence that they harm the environment.

(link) [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

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