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GM? What's All the Fuss About?
First of all, what is GM?GM stands for Genetic Modification, and it involves altering or replacing the natural genes found in natural foods and organisms.
So what?
It's that word 'natural' that is causing a lot of people a lot of concern, particularly organic farmers, market-gardeners, and backyard gardeners. But many other people are concerned as well, particularly ecologists, and for various reasons.
If you grow organically, you aim to produce fresh wholesome food without the aid of chemicals, largely because we now know that the routine application of pesticides, for example, actually causes more problems than it solves. For example, if you kill one insect pest, you are also very likely to kill two helpful species, which might be needed for pollinating your orchard, or which might enjoy nibbling on the pest insects themselves: ('bio-control': Nature's way).
That's at the 'growing end' of things. At the 'consumer end', pesticide residues are a real threat to health, although nobody knows quite how much, especially when people are exposed to a long term 'cocktail effect'. Personally, I have no doubt that eventually we will come to realize that the recent surge in things like Attention Deficit Disorders in our kids has been caused by chemicals getting into their brains, introduced from residues in the food they've been eating for years.
That's just pesticides. There are many other chemicals used in most food production (except organic production).
At another level, chemical fertilisers sooner or later damage the soil itself. Bad soil grows bad crops: for example, carrots that taste like creosote. There's a whole generation grown up who think carrots ought to taste like creosote, because they know no better. Now isn't that sad?
And eventually bad soil grows 'no crops'. Dustbowls… and who can eat dust?
Very broadly, it is for these reasons that organic growers reject the quick fix 'solution' that chemicals appear to promise.
The prime principles of the organic farmer and grower are 'look after the soil, and the soil will look after you', and 'learn from Nature, don't fight her'.
So I hope I've established that 'organic' stands for 'unchemicalled' and 'sustainable'.
Now for GM: Here's the thing: if chemicals are dangerous to health, then genetic tinkering is going to be vastly more dangerous, not least because the tinkerers (huge multinationals whose only motive is profit and, believe it or not, to eventually corner the world's seed supply. Think on that…) have no idea what they might be unleashing on the world. A hysterical claim? Not at all. Nobody fully understands how genes operate. That's a fact. Lots of people know lots of bits of things, but not the whole picture. And if you don't know the whole picture, you can't possibly know what you're doing, can you?
They think they can fiddle and mess about as much as they like, with no thought for the possible consequences. If this reminds you of the approach to nuclear power in the 1960's, well, good. The parallel is a close one. Nuclear electricity was going to be 'too cheap to meter'. Nobody thought ahead to the perfectly obvious problems that would arise with disposing of grotesquely dangerous waste that would remain lethal for thousands of years. It's the same, but worse, with GM. Worse, because they are dealing with living organisms that breed and spread of their own accord, and can never be properly controlled, despite what the multinationals (and, sadly, many politicians) tell you.
How GM works: All plants and animal (and human) bodies are built up according to options laid down in their genes. This is why not every cat, for example, is identical to all other cats, and why it is possible to breed an Irish Wolfhound and a Chihuahua from the same 'gene pool'. There are options available; but there are also limits. It is impossible to breed a dog with fins, for example or a cat with horns (mercifully).
However . . . GM, in principle, might change all that, because it is now possible to mechanically shift a gene from eg a firefly into . . . well, how about an elephant? A glow in the dark elephant? Would you ever get any sleep?
Easy to joke about, but can you see the problem? Consider a strain of wheat, say, that is GM'd to produce sterile pollen (so you have to buy new seed every year, whether you want to or not). What happens when this pollen gets loose, and crosses into a wild grass species? Or a pasture species? Obviously, the species begin to die out, don't they? And don't think this is wildly alarmist. There is currently a pesticide-resistant weed spreading from Dorset as a result of a 'virtually impossible' contamination of a weed species by pollen from a GM crop. Will this be a one-off? What do you think?
And what about our food supply overall? Currently, we have a choice between dirt cheap 'chemical food' or 'somewhat dearer organic food'. But once the GM pollen starts blowing about, the poor old organic farmer will be ruined. So will your food supply, if you want to choose 'organic'. Will the organic man get 'compensation' for the pollution? What do you think? In the USA recently an organic farmer had this problem and sued the chemical company. Guess what? They counter-sued, and he eventually had to pay them for 'stealing' their patented pollen.
Please do yourself a favour today, dear reader: buy a chemical carrot and an organic carrot: then blindfold the kids, and ask them which one tastes better.
Then pause to think…
Gillian Westbrook has been appointed to the new position of
General Manager with IOFGA. Coming from a background in the regulatory area...
