Unwittingly, the article illustrates the industry's hubris and the mainstream press's gullibility in covering the topic.
Pollack opens thusly:
At the dawn of the era of genetically engineered crops, scientists were envisioning all sorts of healthier and tastier foods, including cancer-fighting tomatoes, rot-resistant fruits, potatoes that would produce healthier French fries and even beans that would not cause flatulence.
The only response to that statement is a horselaugh. Tomatoes already fight cancer; fruits like apples and oranges resist rot just fine (Does anyone seriously want, say, raspberries that last weeks? When we harvest them on my farm, they tend to disappear rapidly anyway); french fries can be plenty healthy, so long as you (like those skinny French people) fry them in good-quality fat and don't eat them in excess; and the answer to beans' flatulence problem lies not in the lab, but in the garden: Just add a bit of the hardy herb epazote to the pot. I've seen epazote thrive everywhere from a full-sun garden in Texas to a community garden in Brooklyn to a shady herb patch in North Carolina's mountains.
In other words, low-tech solutions already exist for most of the "problems" the biotech industry has set out to "solve." It's no coincidence that biotech ag companies are the mutant child of the pharmaceutical industry, which peddles a pill for every malady, including many you didn't know you had.
Pollack's next sentence contains another howler: "But so far, most of the genetically modified crops have provided benefits mainly to farmers, by making it easier for them to control weeds and insects."
That's enough to turn one's horselaugh into a full-on growl. How, precisely, have biotech's benefits flowed "mainly to farmers"? Let's review the industry for a second here. As Pollack notes, biotech has failed completely to bring a successful fruit or veg seed to market. Its only triumphs have been in heavily subsidized grain, legume, and fiber crops: specifically corn, soy, and cotton.
Since 1995, when Monsanto started to market GM seeds heavily, some $70 billion in direct government subsidies have flowed to corn, cotton, and soy farmers -- the most prolific decade for commodity subsidies ever. If biotech seeds have been such a boon to farmers, then why have the farmers that grow them needed such a monumental bailout?
Meanwhile, Monsanto's share price, like its bottom line, has surged.
Clearly, the big winners in the biotech boom have not been consumers or (pace Pollack) farmers, but rather shareholders in the seed giants.
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Comments
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mandolin Posted 6:43 pm
16 Feb 2006
Somtimes the scope of things gets to be just another set of numbers. When thinking of billions (one billion = 1,000 million) of dollars that are supporting biotech GREED, it seems that John and Jane Q public are so busy just getting by -- that this is slipping under the radar. I wish there could be warning COMMERCIALS. . . or something to wake up the sleeping public to the various dangers of GMOs.
The more commentary on this the better. Low tech IS the answer. We need more awareness of permaculture, companion planting, and working WITH nature as if we were a part of it -- because we truly are. There are increasing numbers of school gardens. It would be lovely if this was standard. So many children and adults have not had the experience of where food actually comes from.
It should be alarming the few studies that have exposed health dangers of genetically engineered foods. It is frightening to consider the many more cross-species frankenfoods that have NOT been studied, yet are potentially dangerous and allowed to exist and proliferate unchecked -- while those who would make more of these environmentally unsound products are laughing all the way to the bank.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:33 pm
16 Feb 2006
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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caroline brown Posted 12:28 pm
20 Feb 2006
http://earthfriendlygardening.wordpress.com/2006/02/19/jose-bove-vive-la-revolution/
Caroline Brown
http://www.earthfriendlygardening.org
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bendictpaul Posted 9:42 pm
03 Mar 2006
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wiscidea Posted 8:15 am
13 Nov 2007
"The field trials in question were actually designed to determine if crops enhanced to resist insect pests have an effect on the fumonisin content of the grain they produce. Fumonisins are toxins produced by fungi which can infect a growing maize plant. These toxins are dangerous to humans and animals; in humans there is evidence that they cause spina bifida, a highly disabling developmental defect occurring during early stages of pregnancy. Affected children usually cannot walk and they suffer kidney and urinary problems. Often, this is accompanied by brain damage. In horses and pigs, fumonisins cause other kind of illnesses.
The fungi infect a growing maize plant by entering the plant through a wound. Since European corn borers inflict significant wounds on growing maize plants, they leave these plants open to infection. During the field trials in Lombardy, no corn borer larvae were found on the engineered Bt varieties. At the same time, an average of 29 of these parasitic pests were found on each stalk of the conventional varieties--with more than one-third of them in the cobs.
The extensive infection of the conventional plants resulted in a dramatic increase in fumonisin levels, while the engineered varieties had between 100 and 130 times lower levels of the toxins."
I'm maintaining an open mind here regarding whether Bt corn really solves a problem. Decreasing the amount of fumonisins found in maize SEEMS like a good idea. Please present your views regarding the above information, especially...
(1) Is organically grown maize free of corn borers? If so, how is this accomplished?
(2) Is organically grown maize routinely checked for fumonisins and whether the levels present are dangerous?
Until I hear good news from somone, I'm no longer buying organic products containing maize.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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