In the curious
world of environmental lobby groups, one has to marvel at their never-ending
quest for publicity. If that involves inventing imaginary causes, well, that's
OK. It's all part of the business of fundraising.
The latest scare campaign involves farmers using so-called "terminator"
seeds. City folks can be forgiven for not being aware of this contrived crisis--even
if the word terminator was invented to scare a naive public. Like the word
"frankenfood," such terms are designed to attract media headlines
for causes that have little substance.
The terminator seed cause is being propagandized by the usual environmental
suspects, including the Sierra Club and the David Suzuki Foundation. The Canadian
Organic Growers are also involved. The cause even has the support of the Canadian
Labour Congress, whose collective knowledge of agriculture, I suspect, doesn't
extend beyond knowing how to find the produce section at the local supermarket.
But this issue comes with a twist: terminator seeds are actually something
environmental groups and organic farmers have been seeking for years. They're
the answer to protecting crops from the alleged spread of genetically modified
(GM) crops. But when you're in the convoluted business of managing a cause
for cash, the fact is, you really never want what you say you want.
For years, green groups and organic farmer organizations have protested the
growing use of genetically modified crops. The greens claim that GM food products
are dangerous (a bogus claim, since not a single person has died or gotten
sick from food products containing GM ingredients). And organic farmer groups
allege that GM crops contaminate their organically raised crops.
The answer to that complaint is simple: modify the GM seeds so that any subsequent
seeds they bear are sterile. Any contamination would end in one growing season.
That technology actually exists in the form of terminator seeds.
Now you would think the folks opposed to GM crops would support this technology,
as it has the effect of controlling the unintended spread of GM crops into
non-GM crops. But that would put an end to a perfectly good fundraising effort.
So, true to form, these groups now find themselves opposed to something that
would actually help their cause.
They're now alleging that terminator seed technology is a global conspiracy
by evil biotech companies to prevent farmers from using their own seed, allowing
the corporations to control the entire seed market. The groups claim it is
the farmers' ancient, God-given right to produce and save their own seed and
not be forced to buy new seed from capitalist corporations each year.
No one disputes that right. But the folks promoting that perspective seem
to have little understanding of agronomy and crop development history. Ever
since the 1920s, corn has been hybridized for higher yields--meaning that
corn plants have been crossbred to produce more corn, but sterile or unproductive
seeds. For more than 80 years, corn farmers have been buying new hybrid seeds
every year, and the world hasn't come to an end. Other commercial crops that
have been hybridized include canola and soybeans.
Terminator seed technology would, in effect, have the same impact as hybridization.
Befuddled citizens might well wonder what the fuss is all about. Well, the
fuss is coming from enviro groups and organic farmer organizations fearful
that their cause is being derailed to the benefit of capitalist conspirators.
To make the issue even more absurd, contrary to the rantings of the overzealous,
no terminator seeds are currently being developed or marketed. That, of course,
is a minor, annoying detail not mentioned in green propaganda.
It seems that in the duplicitous world of environmental causes, real issues
are becoming scarce. We're at a stage where environmental groups are protesting
things that have not even occurred--except in the paranoid imaginations of
their issue-marketing directors.
As the enviro lobby business has grown into a global fundraising industry,
involving hundreds of millions of dollars, it's becoming clear that the reality
of the issue is no longer even relevant. What's important is how the issue
can be exploited to raise enough revenue to reach donation targets and satisfy
these groups' anti-corporate, anti-progress agenda.
Source:
Will Verboven. Fertile imaginations: The green lobby needs a trumped-up
terminator seed scare to survive. Western Standard (Alberta) (April 24,
2006) (http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=1629);
reproduced with permission
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