GM Crops in the UK & EU

[docsconz]

Great Britains' PM, Gordon Brown is apparently pushing for more GM crops in the UK and EU as an antidote to the world's food shortage problems. This article from the The Independent tells more and describes some pros and cons of thye proposed "solution."

The Independent revealed yesterday that ministers believe Britain's cautious approach to GM should be relaxed because of current global food problems. But the Government's rethink provoked a furious backlash from opponents of GM crops.

Tricia O'Rourke, a spokeswoman for Oxfam, said: "The present food crisis needs more than a technology fix. More focus is needed on sustainable technology that 400 million smallholders can use to improve their productivity."

The article is one of the more balanced ones on the topic that I have seen.

[lapin d'or]

I have never felt happy with GM technology and the companies that are involved, but I have not researched this so my views are really just personal.

What does bother me is the constant emphasis on 'we must have more food' and assuming that science is the only answer.

A significant proportion of the British public are overweight and for most of us that comes from over eating. There is only a food crisis if there is not enough food to go around to meet genuine need. There is also a vast amount of food wastage which is apparently adding to our waste disposal crisis. So whilst the government may be happy for us to grow highly adulterated crops we are not permitted the basic economy of feeding our dinner leftovers to our pigs.

I would like to see Gordon encouraging his nation to grow more of their own food, keep chickens, whatever it takes to become more sustainable and less dependent on international agricultural barons. I guess I just hate people interfering with my food.

[chiantiglace]

I hope to add a bit. If anyone gets a chance to read Kippels "A Moveable feast" that came out last year I highly reccomend it.

First of all, the world needs (at current standards) TWO MORE EARTHS as predicted to give proper sustinence to all the people on the planet. That is intense. So why not look to science. I dont think anyone should shout out any opinion that hasn't at least looked at some facts, not saying anyone has just for future testiment.

I think everything should be done with care and concern, but I see no reason to modify some food to feed dying people. If boosting tomatoes with more products to decrease defficiency in asia, that why would we want to stop it.

This discussion should be held just like any other, going over each detail carefully. There is no "yes" or "no" answer here, on vague answer could be davastating to a large number of people.

Recently rice has been modified to be able to grow in considerable harsh enviroments it has not in the past, and not only grow easier and fuller, but with beta carotene provided inside now as well. That helps labor, time, effieciency and nutrition.

Also grains like rye and wheat have been modified to give fuller bodies of berries and grow much closer to the ground to make harvesting much easier.

Are these such terrible things?

At one time, thousands of years ago before agriculture one group of people needed 12 acres of land to thrive on, now one acre of land can produce enough food for 3000 people.

Something to think about is the amount of beef and pork we consume (america and europe). 1/4 of the central american rainforest has been cleared just to raise cattle for Mcdonalds hamburgers, thats quite amazing. Just think if we all keep eating hamburgers.

You can a lot more protein per acre from farm raised fish, but for the biggest consumers in the world beef and pork still surpass in consumption.

I have heard recently that chicken has been consumed far more than in recent years (probably because of cost).

And we have all heard of the rivers and waterways contaminated by poorly handled hog farms.

Maybe agriculture and livestock has gone as far as its going to go naturally, maybe its time to really invest in science. Besides, why does science always get a bad rap for things, some scientist do stupid things, but some do amazing things.

If a scientist can develop "frankenfruits" to survive without pesticides and herbicides I will take it over the common produce consumed today. Modified genes dont bother me, undigestible chemicals do.

[chiantiglace]

I also wanted to add that previously one in a million fish eggs would survive to adult hood in latter days, now farms are able to get nearly 80%, that is a huge increase.

[docsconz]

In theory, GM of plant foods can be a wonderful thing, but when has technology ever delivered on its promise without unexpected results?

[annecros]

Great topic!

In my opinion, the concept that the UK and Europe can somehow become the world's breadbasket and feed the hungry people of the world via GM crops is silly and wrong headed. Just not enough real estate. While areas of the world that are starving have nothing but real estate.

First of all, Europe and the UK are well fed. World hunger occurs in undeveloped areas where the population outstrips the production of food. If you want to take a global perspective, then take a global perspective.

Grasslands abound in many of these areas. Where grass grows, corn grows. Corn is quite simply a grass. If you want to genetically modify something, modify the most closely related species in the gene bank to thrive in the specific conditions that hungry people live, and feed them efficiently. Don't grow GM corn in Europe and send it to Haiti.

I think areas like Europe, the UK and the America's can play a more important role in feeding the world by preserving genetic diversity. Without a large gene pool of plants that are already adapted to many different climates, there would be no genes to modify. I mean, you have to splice it and dice it, right? Genes aren't spun from thin air in a lab. Preserve that genetic diversity in areas that already are sustaining a population efficiently.

Put the GM crops in areas that are populated by the starving, and thank goodness for technology. Getting over the social and political issues that plague starving areas could use some energy and application from people like Gordon Brown.

I think the "feeding the world's hungry" thing is pure spin. My opinion only.

[docsconz]

Great topic!

In my opinion, the concept that the UK and Europe can somehow become the world's breadbasket and feed the hungry people of the world via GM crops is silly and wrong headed. Just not enough real estate. While areas of the world that are starving have nothing but real estate.

First of all, Europe and the UK are well fed. World hunger occurs in undeveloped areas where the population outstrips the production of food. If you want to take a global perspective, then take a global perspective.

Grasslands abound in many of these areas. Where grass grows, corn grows. Corn is quite simply a grass. If you want to genetically modify something, modify the most closely related species in the gene bank to thrive in the specific conditions that hungry people live, and feed them efficiently. Don't grow GM corn in Europe and send it to Haiti.

I think areas like Europe, the UK and the America's can play a more important role in feeding the world by preserving genetic diversity. Without a large gene pool of plants that are already adapted to many different climates, there would be no genes to modify. I mean, you have to splice it and dice it, right? Genes aren't spun from thin air in a lab. Preserve that genetic diversity in areas that already are sustaining a population efficiently.

Put the GM crops in areas that are populated by the starving, and thank goodness for technology. Getting over the social and political issues that plague starving areas could use some energy and application from people like Gordon Brown.

I think the "feeding the world's hungry" thing is pure spin. My opinion only.

←

There is a reason that older varieties are called "heirloom" varieties - because they spread and survive by being selected and handed down from one generation of farmers to another.

One of the problems with your suggestion is that the companies like Monsanto don't simply give their GM plants away. They control them, such that farmers become dependent on them and ultimately lose the crops upon which they have depended on and handed down to each other over the years. This is becoming a major problem with corn in Mexico for example. The result is a developing homogeneity of the crop and farmers who must rely on the availability of that crop, which may or may not be superior to the native crops. A further difficulty is natural spreading of the GM crops, outcompeting the native species for a while because of their modifications thereby potentially snuffing out much of the genetic diversity that you mention.

[annecros]

There is a reason that older varieties are called "heirloom" varieties - because  they spread and survive by being selected and handed down from one generation of farmers to another.

One of the problems with your suggestion is that the companies like Monsanto don't simply give their GM plants away. They control them, such that farmers become dependent on them and  ultimately lose the crops upon which they have depended on and handed down to each other over the years. This is becoming a major problem with corn in Mexico for example. The result is a developing homogeneity of the crop and farmers who must rely on the availability of that crop, which may or may not be superior to the native crops. A further difficulty is natural spreading of the GM crops, outcompeting the native species for a while because of their modifications thereby potentially snuffing out much of the genetic diversity that you mention.

←

Oh, I get all that. In fact, when I select a couple of heirloom varieties that thrive well in my climate and cross them for fun, I am "modifying" the plant "genetically."

I have a very special feeling for Monsanto. The board is not inviting me for cocktails anytime soon.

Mother Nature still trumps Monsanto. They can sell the seed. They have no control over what happens in an open field, though they have tried to assert that and have had small successes. The developing homogeneity in the crops is simply natural selection. There are traits from all parents in the resulting seed bank. I'm not sure that I understand how a variety that produces more food for starving people in a relatively local geographic area can be classified as inferior.

The genetic diversity is better preserved, I think, in geographic areas that are better nourished. People go a long way to create climates (greenhouse, hydroponics) that cater to the plant's natural habitat in order to preserve it. I think Monsanto might consider funding those sorts of efforts, although they may try to claim copyright protection.

The big argument for genetic diversity to me is: you never know what you might need later.

In the meantime, people have to eat.

Then there are the oceans...

[chiantiglace]

Monsanto is kind of interesting. I read somewhere they were having people arrested if they found certain varieties of their seeds in a persons possession.

Anne I apologize, I am going to respond to your statements, but I was a little confused so my response may not be appropriate, though it is still relative to the discussion.

Doc I agree, some companies just aren't to be trusted, with a little bit of intelligence a lot of danger can occur. The good thing about genetic modification of bananas is that they are sterile and the corms have to be physically planted by human hands. Unfortunately not all plants are like this, so gm corn could overlap into regional varieties creating franken corn. That is a serious problem and large companies seem to be negligent towards it.

To respond to what I believe was being said about genetic modification needing other varieties of the same product to make it better (I think thats what was said), that is not the case. In fact that is one of the main reasons genetic modification is being called in because certain "heirloom" varieties have been so wide spread that less popular varieties get pushed into the background to the point where they are non-existent. Unfortunately so much land has be cleared over the lsat few centuries for specific varieties of fruit and vegetables that wild varieties are destroyed before they are even discovered.

Now scientists are taking a few remaining varieties and adding genes from all sorts of places, even bacteria and animals. There are tomato varieties with one or more bacteria genetic strains that have replaced some of the genes in the tomato to make it more resilient to pests, or climate, or whatever. I think that is what people fear the most. Maybe its not such a big deal that a tomato gets a gene from an artichoke or a nut, but that can cause major cross contamination problems.

Look at soy. There was a large amount of soy that had to be pulled from market because it contained some genes from Brazilian nuts, and since there are plenty of people in the world with strong allergies to the nut they responded towards the soy as well. And it could also play a role when (as discussed previously) modified varieties cross breed naturally with local or un-modified varieties. Then people all the sudden have allergies to soy because nobody knows what plant has the brazilian nut gene and which ones do not.

We should do everything we can to help feed the world, we should look at all possibilities and all possible outcomes pertaining to what we decide to do. There isn't going to be just one answer that will save the world.

I just recently read about companies build agriculture in the ocean for phytoplankton so that we can increase the fish population in the oceans. The only problem is, there is no realestate in the ocean, only working rights (like drilling or fishing) with each country and then there is international water, so how does one claim a piece of ocean to farm their?

heres a link:

cato

[caroline]

In theory, GM of plant foods can be a wonderful thing, but when has technology ever delivered on its promise without unexpected results?

←

Well, sure, any action we take in life, whether adopting a new technology, a new wife, a new president, a walk down the street, or posting on eGullet, is going to have unanticipated results and unintended consequences.

So that leaves us with a choice of inaction or taking what seems to be the best action given our limited knowledge in the full realization that some unintended consequences will ensue. So I'd be hesitant about using this as an argument against GM though it seems to have wide currency.

Rachel

[docsconz]

In theory, GM of plant foods can be a wonderful thing, but when has technology ever delivered on its promise without unexpected results?

←

Well, sure, any action we take in life, whether adopting a new technology, a new wife, a new president, a walk down the street, or posting on eGullet, is going to have unanticipated results and unintended consequences.

So that leaves us with a choice of inaction or taking what seems to be the best action given our limited knowledge in the full realization that some unintended consequences will ensue. So I'd be hesitant about using this as an argument against GM though it seems to have wide currency.

Rachel

←

It depends on what the potential may be for the unintended consequences and the likelihood of them happening. It also depends on the potential benefits and the likelihood of them happening. I have yet to see anything to indicate that GM of plants is beneficial to anything other than the companies doing the GM. Meanwhile, the potential negative consequences are disastrous. I think encouraging biodiversity makes more sense on many levels.

[heidih]

Although I have an educational background in biology, I am a neophyte in terms of the latest research. I have an aversion to what I conceive of as "manufactured" food simply on a gut level with no factual basis. When I look at world hunger or lack of food resources, which I think we are talking about, I truly believe that politics way way way more than biology are at issue. Maybe the lawyer in me sees the posturing more than the solution going on (in the world- not on EG) However, based on great professors telling me over and over again that knowledge- harnessed by the right people- is positive power- I want to see the research being done and I can only hope that it goes to the greater good.

[Mallet]

There's nothing in the article to suggest that relaxing current restrictions on GM crops will have any effect on yield, and it may indeed have substantial negative impacts. Is the time right? No.

[chiantiglace]

The time is always right to develop. When to use that development may be the question. In fact the more we develop and map that better because when it comes time to plant we will have had a head start.

If the only thing that will grow in a region of starving people is a gm, do you stop them from growing it?

[caroline]

In theory, GM of plant foods can be a wonderful thing, but when has technology ever delivered on its promise without unexpected results?

←

Well, sure, any action we take in life, whether adopting a new technology, a new wife, a new president, a walk down the street, or posting on eGullet, is going to have unanticipated results and unintended consequences.

So that leaves us with a choice of inaction or taking what seems to be the best action given our limited knowledge in the full realization that some unintended consequences will ensue. So I'd be hesitant about using this as an argument against GM though it seems to have wide currency.

Rachel

←

It depends on what the potential may be for the unintended consequences and the likelihood of them happening. It also depends on the potential benefits and the likelihood of them happening. I have yet to see anything to indicate that GM of plants is beneficial to anything other than the companies doing the GM. Meanwhile, the potential negative consequences are disastrous. I think encouraging biodiversity makes more sense on many levels.

←

Well, until now the benefits are clearly not to the consumer in the rich world because the technologies were designed to reduce costs to the farmer. Food is so cheap in the US that improvement in productivity, however desirable from the farmer's point of view, is not perceived by the consumer. But their potential for helping farmers in other parts of the world, particularly Africa, seems to me enormous and one of the most promising ways of lifting people out of poverty.

I'm not at all sure what the potentially disastrous negative consequences of action are. I do believe though that the potentially negative consequences of inaction are huge.

I'm all for encouraging biodiversity too. But I'm not sure how this translates into better crops for poor farmers. Perhaps I'm missing something.

[chiantiglace]

Really we dont need to get into to it but the bigger problem is establishing a stable economy for the people. The worst thing we can do is just feed them, then they become even more helpless and reliant on us or a "government" to support them. It really comes down to "teach a man to farm and he can feed himself for a lifetime" instead of just feeding him.

So whatever we do, hopefully a combination of many things, we really need to focus on how to promote food growth in places its just not working out. If certain varieties of gm crops are the only way to work, then so be it but we should be constantly looking in a broad fashion at all possibilities to create the ultimate solution.

[lapin d'or]

If my understanding is right gm seed crops are all copyright/licenced use only and so anyone growing food from them is by definition dependent on the companies & countries that designed and copyrighted the seeds. This alone is a serious problem because if the only crops you can live off are the ones from these guys they have you over a barrell.

Away from gm but still with the fears of science and the food chain many uk home gardeners are right now discovering that no one can be trusted. They are currently seeing their home grown crops die before their eyes as hormonal herbicide that were sprayed on fields that were then cut to make hay or silage that fed horses or cattle that then became manure on their gardens are still active and destroying a whole range of plant species. The chemical firm can blame the farmers for misuse but in reality if an accident/oversight can happen it will so why is this stuff being licenced so freely in the first place.

Gut feelings are sometimes the only guide you have in life and mine are still saying the agricultural industry is in no shape to tackle a world food crisis.

edited to correct pesticide to herbicide

Edited July 2, 2008 by lapin d'or (log)

[docsconz]

In theory, GM of plant foods can be a wonderful thing, but when has technology ever delivered on its promise without unexpected results?

←

Well, sure, any action we take in life, whether adopting a new technology, a new wife, a new president, a walk down the street, or posting on eGullet, is going to have unanticipated results and unintended consequences.

So that leaves us with a choice of inaction or taking what seems to be the best action given our limited knowledge in the full realization that some unintended consequences will ensue. So I'd be hesitant about using this as an argument against GM though it seems to have wide currency.

Rachel

←

It depends on what the potential may be for the unintended consequences and the likelihood of them happening. It also depends on the potential benefits and the likelihood of them happening. I have yet to see anything to indicate that GM of plants is beneficial to anything other than the companies doing the GM. Meanwhile, the potential negative consequences are disastrous. I think encouraging biodiversity makes more sense on many levels.

←

Well, until now the benefits are clearly not to the consumer in the rich world because the technologies were designed to reduce costs to the farmer. Food is so cheap in the US that improvement in productivity, however desirable from the farmer's point of view, is not perceived by the consumer. But their potential for helping farmers in other parts of the world, particularly Africa, seems to me enormous and one of the most promising ways of lifting people out of poverty.

I'm not at all sure what the potentially disastrous negative consequences of action are. I do believe though that the potentially negative consequences of inaction are huge.

I'm all for encouraging biodiversity too. But I'm not sure how this translates into better crops for poor farmers. Perhaps I'm missing something.

←

Rachel, Mexico is a good example of some of the perils of GM crops as those crops outcompete the myriad native varieties, ultimately replacing them with homogenous varieties supplied by the large agribusiness companies. I recall a conversation I had with Amado Ramirez Leyva bemoaning the effects of cheap US GM corn and beans coming into Mexico and displacing the native varieties. He was also quite concerned about the potential and actual loss of biodiversity based upon the advent of GM crops. In theory, there are benefits, but the reality is that they decrease competition, increase reliance on technology and limit biodiversity by reducing the available gene pool. The companies producing these crops are not in business for humanitarian reasons. They are in business so that there investors realize short term profits. That is not to say that there isn't some potential benefit or even that the profit motivation is inherently bad when it comes to this. I just have not seen the beneficial aspects put into practice. Where I live, farmers are becoming increasingly forced into buying seeds on an annual basis from large agribusiness suppliers with increasing homogeneity of their product. As for increasing food yields in underdeveloped countries, there are a number of other strategies that hold as much or more promise than GM crops including educational efforts towards improving sustainable farming practices.

[v. gautam]

The problems of food shortage have NOTHING whatsoever to do with the availability of food, merely availability of food at a price the poorest 60% can afford to pay with sufficient ease.

Plus, the food crisis has nothing whatsoever to with the ability to produce food in the so-called Third World countries:

1. Not a problem of YIELD, the amount of food produced per unit area [although this has its own issues re: yield plateau, environmental degradation etc. China, India; but this is not a college course!!]

2. It is a matter of PRODUCTIVITY, the efficiencies with which the inputs to agriculture, like fuel, water, etc are used.

3. The term EFFICIENCY itself is very complicated, even in areas that apparently should be simple. take for example BIOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY and what you include in your philosophical, sociological or ideological reference POINTS make a whole lot of difference. Example:

The Chesapeake Bay is/was one of the richest ecological production zones on the planet. It must be understood that the world oceans are largely nutrient deserts, kept functioning by rather few oases, of which the Bay is a significant one. o immediately we run into a problem, where are its "limits" to be dawn, since it fecundates not just the North American coast but the Atlantic as whole? And not just marine life but birds as well, birds that interct with the marine life cycles in an important way?

So let us come to the pig farms on the rivers feeding the Chesapeake. On some measures of BIOLOGICAL EFFICIENCY, they have calculated out the separate weight gain profiles of male and female pigs. So they are fed accordingly, and fed is not "wasted", herd size managed for maximum returns to capital, everything done according to the law or the law changed to make the practices profitable.

Seen from one perspective, a lot of efficiencies are being gained. However, from another, those sme efficiencies appear to exploit lowered opportunity costs: the nitrogen cycle is completely disrupted is so vastly an inefficient way as to beggar the imagination. This is als true true of the poultry and beef intensive farms. Additionally, wastes and materials treated as per the law find their way into the public waters such that every singe male fish in those rivers is hormonally abnormal. Pathogens like Pfiesteria piscivora that were negligible before have now developed alarming virulence. And the future of the Chesapeake due to this and other causes is not bright.

Similarly, in so-called Third World countries, agriculture suffers from a number of distortions. In India, for example, there are distortions caused by the introduction of cropping systems that are unsuitable for all the varied zones and labor niche found there. This then is compounded by “perverse subsidies” of electricity, water fertilizer etc.; technically termed “perverse” because of cascading perverse effects, all of which create resuls opposite the intended goals, from hurting the poorest farmers, to increasing the deficit in GDP to unsustainable levels. Eventually, these distortions culminate, as they have been doing in India for many decades, in violent peasant unrest. By the government’s own admission, 165 districts, home to 35% of India’s population, are no longer under its civilian administration. That is more than 350 million people, more than the populations of Pakistan and Bangladesh combined!!

In Pakistan it is much the same story plus an exploding population, something all the subcontinent needs to tackle on a SERIOUS footing. People cannot jus on giving birth adclaim some divine right to sustenance just by being present and hungry. While this is a problem, the far greater problem immediately is the distorted agricultural growth. Unlssthere is a drastic revision of cropping systems, [beginning decades ago!] things will explode.

Pakistan depend on exporting rice and cotton goods: behind this is such a rat’s nest that is too complicated to deal with here, but a aid country cannot waste water growing rice for export, particularly amidst a growing water crisis that we have been writing about for decades now. The US is about to increase civil aid there from $500 million to $1.5 billion annually in order to create development on the ground, and thus buy peace. As the ins& outs of aid to Afghanistan has shown, aid rarely reaches the intended recipients, and the more money allocated, the more is removed by local and expatriate agents, leaving the intended in a greater state of fury, because they see it all. Forty per cent disappears before it leaves our shores, 50% is divvied up for program implementation by expatriate advisors, NGOs and civil groups there, and 10 % trickles down in badly-designed schemes to a humiliated and angry people!

All that happens is that UN et al. spend money flying around to expensive conferences, talking nonsense and wasting money. Elsewhere on this, one has written how for peanuts, immense benefits can be reaped. The money need not be sent anywhere but here, nd only the knowledge shared, so there is no fear of unscrupulous Third World peope running away with someone’s hard-earned money! And the issues add immensely to everyone’s knowledge base. But the time to act has been passing us by.

gautam

Edited July 10, 2008 by v. gautam (log)

[helenjp]

Lots of interesting material here.

I think the biodiversity argument is extremely important, it looks like icing, but in fact it's the whole cake - rigid genetic design = fragile genetic design.

As far as control and responsibility goes, I think the considerations are mostly focused on anticipated legal battles, and not on the fact that plants and microbes are likely the most important living things on the planet - maybe the only ones that are really needed? If we want to consider the possible consequences of a misstep in agriculture, let us recall that a good proportion of the world's arid and low productivity regions are the result of salinity caused by poor management of natural and cropped plants. We've had the odd few thousand years to work on this problem, but still haven't got it figured out...what are the chances that we have the impact of GM accurately assessed and under control?

Can't we take the GM budget, and spend it on understanding how soil and water function together?

GM just seems like a quick and dirty fix to me - how about the miracle golden rice that is being touted as the answer to vitamin A deficiency in India - I heard that even in experimental plots, workers were having trouble with allergic reactions to the daffodil component that had been forced into the rice. The danger here is that initial testing won't find very many people with daffodil allergies - but after eating the rice or handling the plants daily, many more people tend to develop allergies. Just imagine what happens if a big percentage of a staple crop in a country with little excess in food production is switched over to a highly allergenic crop whose seed is controlled and possibly designed to be infertile at producer level, and is controlled by a single company...

Wouldn't it be cheaper, easier, safer to encourage people to grow tough old Malabar spinach in pots by their front door, if Vitamin A is such a problem? (And there are many, many more dark green Indian vegetables anyway). Do we *really* need a patent-protected restricted distribution product to "solve" this "problem"?

Here in Japan, we are told so much about the Japanese respect for nature and the environment being THE reason why GM crops or seeds are not permitted...yet many agricultural high schools have kids experimenting with GM plants as a matter of course, with little oversight, and certainly little management of where the resulting plants are grown and what happens to their seeds.

The issue of cross-breeding is a problem - these are highly specialized plants, after all - and yet, the possibility of turning over large portions of our food supply to plants which are designed to have only sterile seed would be even more terrifying...

[Soupcon]

There is in fact no shortage of food in this world. The problem is location, transportation and cost as a result of the subsidization of crops in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia and the policies of the World Bank in the structural adjustment programs (SAPs) forced on the poorest countries of the world. The SAPs forced the farmers to subsidize the "industrial base" in their country while making farm inputs increasingly expensive and forced many small farmers off the land while at the same time allowing the agribusiness to take over the land once farmed by small sharecroppers for the export markets (bananas for example) - a condition of the SAP (world bank) for exports from each country involved. This allowed Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia markets for their over production of crops due to subsidies and to replace the staple crops once produced by local farmers to be substituted by a taste for the cheaper imported wheat, corn etc. Food aid from these same countries also made sure that the farmers in neighbouring countries to those experiencing crop failure were undercut by tied aid or food aid. So counties which had or should be self sufficient or almost self sufficient in food production are now dependent on imported food.

Holding commodities futures has now also become a method used by large investment dealers/traders and countries to offset the decline in value of their holdings in the declining US dollar and the amount if each commodity is finite while the increase of US dollars in world markets appears to be infinite - many dollars chasing after few widgets drives up the price of widgets.

[caroline]

Rachel, Mexico is a good example of some of the perils of GM crops as those crops outcompete the myriad native varieties, ultimately replacing them with homogenous varieties supplied by the large agribusiness companies. I recall a conversation I had with Amado Ramirez Leyva bemoaning the effects of cheap US GM corn and beans coming into Mexico and displacing the native varieties. He was also quite concerned about the potential and actual loss of biodiversity based upon the advent of GM crops. In theory, there are benefits, but the reality is that they decrease competition, increase reliance on technology and limit biodiversity by reducing the available gene pool. The companies producing these crops are not in business for humanitarian reasons. They are in business so that there investors realize short term profits. That is not to say that there isn't some potential benefit or even that the profit motivation is inherently bad when it comes to this. I just have not seen the beneficial aspects put into practice. Where I live, farmers are becoming increasingly forced into buying seeds on an annual basis from large agribusiness suppliers with increasing homogeneity of their product. As for increasing food yields in underdeveloped countries, there are a number of other strategies  that hold as much or more promise than GM crops including educational efforts towards improving sustainable farming practices.

←

Hi John, Sorry for the incredibly long lapse of time before this reply. I was confined to bed (lovely old fashioned phrase) for nearly a month and am only now struggling back to consciousness.

I could not agree more that many Mexican intellectuals, perhaps most, are concerned about GM crops. I hear it in seminars at the National University all the time.

The question, though, is what to make of that. Most Mexico City intellectuals (though I am sure not your friend Amado Ramirez) know about as much about either the peasant cultivation of maize or about modern plant breeding as the average reader of Michael Pollan's articles in the NY Times. That is to say, nothing.

They hear the same rumors as their American and European equivalents and they are also constantly and understandably looking over their shoulders at aggressive moves from the 10,000 pound gorilla to the north of the border.

But the net result is that in general I trust their opinions on this about as much as I trust those of a (say) jazz player in New York or a (say) editorial writer in a European newspaper. That is, not much.

Sure the companies are not in business for humanitarian reasons. Most NGOs and governments in the last generation have got out of the business leaving it to the businesses. They could get back in if they wished. But yes the primary business of businesses is profit.

I think I am less worried than you are about farmers buying seed. When I was a child, my family who farmed a considerable acreage in England, always bought their seed. It was just better than anything they could replant. In fact they grew crops explicitly to be sold as seed, a high margin, high risk business. And that was back in the Dark Ages more or less. Improved seed is great. I mean how many gardeners don't buy much of their seed for exactly this reason? You may find one that does really well on your soil.

Nor is it clear that (say) GM maize (which is not grown for human consumption in Mexico) competes well with land races of maize if left to themselves. GM is developed for reducing costs of fertilizer, pesticide etc in the US. Landraces probably out perform them for properties such as drought resistance, poor soils, etc. And it's worth remembering that the biodiversity of maize fluctuates constantly, maize being an entirely man made and highly malleable plant.

And perhaps you could be a tad more specific about the sustainable maize practices. I've spent a good bit of time chatting with campesinos with just a few acres. Right now the economics don't work out as you can see from the results of this informal interview. I want all these people to be able to eat meat from time to time, send their kids to school, and have a car and a television.

Utopian perhaps,

All best,

Rachel