The Genetically Modified food news has been fairly quiet for sometime at least here in the UK. But with the sudden steep rise in food prices all the old arguments for allowing more GM foods to be grown will undoubtedly resurface. Just at a time when organic food had been growing in popularity, the down turn in the economy makes people think twice about paying the extra for it.
GM Contamination
Despite UK government reassurance that GM contamination of wild plants is virtually impossible, a follow-up to the GM crop trials has found evidence to the contrary. GM rape has crossed with charlock, or wild mustard, to create a tough pesticide-resistant strain. The charlock, a common weed, was growing in the same field used for GM oil-seed rape crop trials. When scientists sprayed it with a lethal pesticide, there were no ill effects. As charlock is a distant relative of oil-seed rape, cross-pollination is alarming. The scientists also collected seeds from other weeds in the GM oil-seed rape field. They found that two both wild turnips were also pesticide-resistant. The discovery by the five scientists from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the government research station at Winfrith in Dorset, was placed on the department's website without a public announcement.
The oil-seed rape originally grown in the government trials had pesticide-resistant DNA inserted into its genes. This is to make pesticide spraying easier, because the GM plant survives the spray. But, as environmental groups have warned, the technique breeds 'super weeds' with the genetic ability to withstand pesticides. These super weeds then have to be treated with older and more toxic pesticides.
In July one biotech giant, Bayer, withdrew its application to grow GM oil-seed rape in Europe, partly as a result of consumer rejection of GM food in Europe.
Government scientist will no doubt tell us there are lots of benefits and no downside what so ever. But I do wish that more scientists would try to find ways to live in harmony with the planet and spend less time trying to outsmart it only to find an unforeseen reaction or consequence.
My thoughts on GM
Its not that I am against the use of technology to grow our food, I'm happy to see the advance in growth yields, by using conventional grafting techniques.
But like most sensible people I am uneasy when the scientists use genetic modification to make a crop more pesticide resistant so the farmer can use a stronger pesticide on the crop when we still don't know what the long term affects of pesticide residues in our bodies. I don't want some boffin putting a chicken gene into a tomato to give a longer shelf life.
In America, consumers seem oblivious to the fact that many of its crops are GM based particularly corn and soya, which has caused the EU to impose various import bans on these crops . When comes to food at the moment Americans seem to trust whatever the supermarkets wish to sell them.
*Portions of this piece were sourced from The Guild of Food Writers web site.
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