Food
Page last updated: 24th Apr 2009
GM Crops : Where Does Our Food Come From?
Genetically Modified Food
Why does the very thought rattle something deep in my soul?
It’s puzzled me for a long time. Something about it just won’t sit right with me. It’s true that organic toting, back-to-the-Earth people like me are often labelled anti-science. But we tend to be like that for good reason. We are not against the scientific approach by any means. It is more that we are against the people that use it as a justification as though any other view point is worthless.
GM is shrouded in uncertainties. No-one knows the long term effects. But such testing is a Pandora’s box, once the test crops are growing along side, the wind alone will do the rest let alone the birds and the insects. The pollen will be everywhere.
Vast swathes of the US have been given over to GM crops. On the up side there is the environmental advantage that they ned less pesticides, the crops being genetically modified with resistance. This is fantastic news for the cotton industry plagued by a little bug that bores into the cotton heads and destroys the crop. I’m guessing, then, that the organic cotton we can buy must come from GM crops.
Jimmy Doherty’s Horizon program (on BBC iplayer until 23 December) in which he investigates his own fears about GM, spoke the fears of a lot of UK residents and covered a great deal of ground. But I felt the program came out in favour of GM rather than giving us a reason to be against the stuff. He didn’t ask some of the questions I wanted answers to.
One of them, touched on briefly, was the fact that any genes could be used in the process. This means that we do not have to stop at inter-plant modifications, we can cross genes between ANY species. This goes way beyond cross pollination which cannot possibly be used in support of GM, though many try. Monsanto and others will have compelling arguments for crossing fish genes with their tomatoes and strawberries; drought resistance and saline watering among them, I’m sure. The marketing boys can work up a storm about how they are preparing for the future with all the climate change issues. They would look like heroes if they could perfect it! Unfortunately, they have as yet failed to do so.
And this is the real nub, isn’t it? I picked up The Ecologist magazine
the other day and found the root of all my fears laid out in black and white. It is not the scientific experimentation that worries me in particular. It is the fact that so much money is being poured into the pockets of a few big conglomerates. Food giants who will hold the future of our personal food consumption in their hands.
Thank gods for the Millennium Seed Bank Project!
Further:
Jonathan Matthews, an editor at GMWatch, responds to Jimmy Doherty’s Horizon program
Where Does Our Food Come From?
I'm sure the bright sparks amongst us will be quick to say "Waitrose!"
But a recent article on the BBC site about Food Origins says that:
"22% of 1,073 adults questioned did not know bacon and sausages originate from farms."
It goes on to say that: "Some 47% of people did not know farms produced porridge's main ingredient." *
I worry that this kind of dis-connection with the land that is causing a lot of heart ache and strife. How can we understand the plight of the famine torn countries if we don't even know what a pig does for us? And why should we care about the plight of our pigs if we don't know how much they are a part of our lives?
It's made me start thinking about a new section for this web site: "Connections" or perhaps "Joint the Dots". Could be fun to do and might get the message across.
* Just in case anyone reading this is scratching their heads here are the answers: Porridge = Oats; Bread = Wheat; Bacon = Pig; Kebab = Sheep; Burger = Cow; Egg = Chicken; Chicken = Egg.
If you would like to comment on this article or discuss the issues involved, please go to my ethical living blog page.