Genetically engineered food gains popularity during food crisis
- April 21st, 2008
- Read 539 times
- 1 Comment
Not anymore, you don’t
Who benefits from the food shortage that’s causing riots in developing countries and hoarding in America? Why the biotech crowd, of course. Since the increase in price of certain foods, consumers and companies have started dropping resistance to what the Europeans charmingly refer to as Frankenfoods. If non-genetiocally modified rice is too expensive, load up on the genetically modified stock. It’s cheaper and is resistant to all sorts of maladies, like insects and pesticides. (No having to pay for pesticides to keep the plants clear of bugs, then.) That these genetically modified plants haven’t been studied too closely, who cares? I live in New York (for now). If the terrible air quality doesn’t kill me, then I’m sure I’ll be done in on the F train or something.
Such modified plants aren’t necessarily a panacea for the food shortage. A recent study found that farmers in the developing world would benefit the same amount, if not more, from having better access to clean water than switching to genetically modified crops.
Let the record show I have zero problem with genetically modified food. Bring ‘em on.
Benjamin (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Google “terminator seeds” and read up on whether or not saving a few bucks on rice is worth empowering the types of people who would develop that type of “technology”. I understand why someone in a developing country where a few bucks could be the difference between getting enough rice to feed your family or not would be tempted to support the developers of terminator technology, but an American living in New York? Come on, just shop around a bit.
Look down the road. Do you want to live in a world where food prices are controlled by people who have a lock on the seed stock? I’ve thought about terminator a lot on and off during the last decade since I first heard of it, and I still have yet to find one benefit it brings to consumers. The only logical reason you would develop a “technology” like that would be to gain defacto control of agriculture.
But you know, maybe you should just live in the now and not care about the effects your seemingly small choices today could cause down the road. What did Bush say about history? Something like: “who cares, we’ll all be dead.” It’s a popular attitude these days.