A correspondent in New England has raised an interesting question. As a business owner, is the purity of your product your responsibility or that of your neighbours?

He offered the example of a laundry given to drying sheets in the open air. Can you and should you be able to prevent traffic past your sheets because the exhaust and dust might soil them?

That, he argues, is what the organic lobby and others are trying to do with GM crops and agricultural biotechnology. Farming, by its very nature largely an outdoor activity, has long recognised that products cannot be absolutely “pure” (whatever that might mean) but that low levels of harmless “impuriities” are inevitably present.

But the organic lobby has for years inssted that no amount of genetically modified material is acceptable in their crops, even though they can show no harm.

It is interesting in that regard that a Canadian court has recently recognised the absurdity of organic growers making their neighbors responsible for the purity of their crops and dismissed a class action lawsuit by organic canola growers.

Sources:

1. Douglas R. Johnson (14.2.08). GE crop debate. Bangor Daily News (Maine)

2. Supreme Court of Canada rejects Saskatchewan Organic Directorate class action. The ACTivist magazine (14.12.07) (http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=793&Itemid=143)

<<<back