London (18.6.07)
– Once more, genetic use restriction technology (or GURT – see
http://www.cropgen.org/article_72.html), dubbed “terminator” by
those anxious to whip up concern, is being misrepresented and castigated for
what it is not.
A report from ETC, a Canadian anti-GM group, and faithfully given publicity
by a UK Sunday newspaper often giving comfort to such views, claims once more
that the use of the technology (which does not actually exist) threatens the
livelihood of farmers who wish to save seed. As the Independent on Sunday
put it: “This would force the 1.4 billion poor farmers who traditionally
save seeds from one year's harvest to sow for the following one instead to
buy new ones from biotech firms, swelling their profits but increasing poverty
and hunger”.
It would, of course, do nothing of the sort. The proposal has always been
that people anxious for good reason or not about cross-pollination from GM
plants could be relieved of their worries if that GM pollen were sterile.
Unlikely to be a perfect way of offering such protection because, like everything
else in biology, few procedures are totally effective, it would nevertheless
have a very considerable effect in that direction.
Doing so might, in the eyes of the anti-GM brigade, make GM crops more acceptable
by those who worry and that is indeed exactly what has caused this latest
“environmentalist” howl.
It has always been, is now and will continue to be the case that nobody is
forced to buy such seeds. Their only purpose would be to limit the likelihood
of cross-pollinating non-GM crops. There would be no benefit to the GM farmer.
Nor, indeed, would there be any to the producers of GM seeds because they
already charge a technology fee and require farmers who wish to use their
seeds to buy a fresh batch each year. The millions of farmers who do that
years after year presumably think it a good idea. The millions who do not
either have other views or the misfortune to live and work in countries which
continue actually to ban or make it difficult for their own farmers to grow
GM crops and so compete on equal terms on the world market.
The ETC report perceives really dirty work at the crossroads: “There’s
also a more sinister possibility,” suggests ETC’s Silvia Ribeiro,
“that companies could pull the plug on plants they believe are being
grown without the proper licensing agreements. We’ve already seen biotech
companies resort to nasty tactics to ferret out farmers suspected of possible
patent infringement.” In other words, the wicked seed companies might
actually try to stop people infringing their licensing agreements, infringements
for which successful prosecutions have already been brought. Some people equate
such infringements to theft but, for anti-GM campaigners, “theft”
in a good cause is, just like vandalism of GM crops fields, entirely justified
in terms of the “greater good”.
ETC and others taking a similar stand must finally be getting the message
that GM crops are here to stay. Every day which passes without the catastrophe
they endlessly prophesy must bring them closer to general use, even in Europe.
The prospect of these politically “environmentalists” losing a
campaign which has already lasted over a decade and which has had enormous
consequent losses of wealth, health and even of lives – mainly in the
Third World – is making them ever more jumpy.
Sources:
1. Suicide-Seed Sequel: EU’s “Transcontainer” Turns
Terminator into Zombie (13.6.07). ETC Group (http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=634)
2. Geoffrey Lean (17.6.07). 'Zombie crops' funded by British taxpayers
to 'get round' GM ban. Independent on Sunday (http://environment.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/article2666422.ece)
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