Slippers

Reported in today's NZ Herald:

"New Zealand is backing an American move to pressure European countries into accepting genetically modified food and crops."

Don

So you're against (say) GM rice that improves the nutrition of rice eaters in some of the poorest parts of the old?

Cheers - Don

Slippers

When I came to NZ, the country was promoting itself as GE free under the slogan "100% Pure". Now it seems the govt is changing its mind.

Companies pushing GM crops are not motivated by a desire to alleviate malnourishment in the world's poor.

Don

Don't agree with you, Slipper. It's giving new crops an advantage over existing competitors that will make the GM seeds sell more (which is what the companies pushing GM crops want). That advantage can include higher yield, improved nutritional characteristics, reduced requirement for treatment by pesticides - etc. Are you saying these 3 elements are undesirable?

Cheers - Don

Slippers

Companies pushing GM crops are motivated by getting a monoploy over crops used and then applying the stranglehold. As you will see.

jseni01d

Couldn't agree more. Nothing that Monsanto or any of the other multinationals pushing GM crops have done so far - bribing/twisting governments' arms to stop unfavourable research being published, conducting smear campaigns against scientists who find that GM crops damage the environment, developing seeds with "Terminator" genes that force farmers to buy new seeds every year, propagating pro-GM "research" by fictitious "scientists" in academic forums, etc etc - suggests they are interested in anything other than making fat wads of cash.

Don't get me wrong. The technology itself has the potential to bring many of the benefits Don mentions, but to think that these benefits will materialise from the hands of corrupt, unaccountable corporations is wishful thinking, to put it mildly.

If the NZ govt is helping the Bush junta (coincidentally - yeah right! - the recipient of millions of dollars from Monsanto) to pressurise the EU, they should be ashamed of themselves. I can only think it's the price they've been asked to pay to get the US-NZ free-trade agreement they're after.

Cheers,
John

Don

There may be a good case for stiff regulation.

Look at the privatisation of the UK water utilities. The doomsday merchants said the privatised companies would squeeze all the profits they could out of the system and it would be a terrible outcome for the UK population. Instead of which, there has been massive capital investment, end result cleaner water, cheaper water, better environmental control, less water leakage.

There can be a strong case made for close supervision of GM crop development.

Cheers - Don