2 Reports At Odds On Biotech Crops

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Dispute Is Over Use of Pesticides

Take your pick:

The widening adoption of genetically engineered crops by farmers around the world is reducing global pesticide use, increasing agricultural yields and bringing unprecedented prosperity and food security to millions of the world's poorest citizens.

Or, it is fueling greater use of pesticides, putting crop yields at risk, driving small farmers out of business and decreasing global food security by giving a single company control over much of the world's seed supply.

Dueling reports released yesterday -- one by a consortium largely funded by the biotech industry and the other by a pair of environmental and consumer groups -- came to those diametrically different conclusions.

Washington Post

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1. Modifying Crops A Risky Venture

"As things stand in Canada and the U.S., the precautionary principle has been abandoned and GM crops can be marketed as long as the producing company asserts there is no harm. As scientists are not looking for harm, none is being found."

Sadly, dangerously, genetic scientists have gone far beyond emulating or hastening natural processes of development. Employed by major agro-chemical firms, they are developing sterile plants so that the historical practice of retaining seed from a harvest for next year's planting is useless, and farmers have to purchase new seeds each year from these companies which have cornered the market; remember prairie farmer Percy Schmeiser's losing battle with Monsanto? Herbicide-resistant crop plants facilitate chemical weeding, but they are
genetically-uniform.

In other words, this is monoculture carried to an extreme with all its attendant risks, though it does create a market for the herbicides produced and promoted by agri-business.

BCLocalNews (Victoria, British Columbia)