We are very privileged to live among the most abundant and highest consuming nations in the world, unaffected directly by malnutrition or famines, reliant on large-scale farming in order to provide for a constantly growing population. It is naive to vilify GMO in general, when part of the results have been maintaining or improving crop yields while simultaneously reducing insecticide and herbicide use, as opposed to failing crops, unsustainable yields, or increased usage of the sprays. Other GMO enrichments of nutritional content and crop quality and quantity, without _transgenic_ modification may also be essential for our future. (Tweaking the plants existing genes rather than inserting foreign ones.) If you are for or against GMO in general, because of the perceived potential health risk or because of the politics, you have a responsibility to continually research the different sides of the issue and go beyond a knee-jerk reaction, especially when food security and sustainability are very real challenges in our generation; not just the distant future. This linked piece from last year is a good overview. blogs.discovermagazine/science-sushi/2013/05/01/esteemed-journal-nature-dedicates-issue-to-gmos-defends-technology/ “Unfortunately, the public GMO discourse is dominated by phony, pseudoscientific claims advanced by ideologically motivated activists and their enablers in the media.” Genetic engineering isn’t the enemy of sustainable agriculture, even if Monsanto or other agri-businesses are. The technology itself is unbiased, and can be used to revolutionize food production globally. To blanket attack technologies with the potential to help billions while lessening our impact on the rest of the Earth is counter-productive to everything the environmental movement stands for.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 19:17:47 +0000
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