http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/12/eacharles112.xml
Quote
The mass development of genetically modified crops risks causing the world's worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has warned.
In his most outspoken intervention on the issue of GM food, the Prince said that multi-national companies were conducting an experiment with nature which had gone "seriously wrong".
The Prince, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, also expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research.
He accused firms of conducting a "gigantic experiment I think with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".
"Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?".
Relying on "gigantic corporations" for food, he said, would result in "absolute disaster".
"That would be the absolute destruction of everything... and the classic way of ensuring there is no food in the future," he said.
"What we should be talking about is food security not food production - that is what matters and that is what people will not understand.
"And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."
Small farmers, in particular, would be the victims of "gigantic corporations" taking over the mass production of food.
"I think it's heading for real disaster," he said.
"If they think this is the way to go....we [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."
The Prince of Wales's forthright comments will reopen the whole debate about GM food.
They will put him on a collision course with the international scientific community and Downing Street - which has allowed 54 GM crop trials in Britain since 2000.
His intervention comes at a critical time. There is intense pressure for more GM products, not fewer, because of soaring food costs and widespread shortages.
Many scientists believe GM research is the only way to guarantee food for the world's growing population as the planet is affected by climate change.
They will be dismayed by such a high profile and controversial contribution from the Prince of Wales at such a sensitive time.
The Prince will be braced for the biggest outpouring of criticism from scientists since he accused genetic engineers of taking us into "realms that belong to God and God alone" in an article in the Daily Telegraph in 1998.
In the interview the Prince, who has an organic farm on his Highgrove estate, held out the hope of the British agricultural system encouraging more and more family run co-operative farms.
When challenged over whether he was trying to turn back the clock, he said: "I think not. I'm terribly sorry. It's not going backwards. It is actually recognising that we are with nature, not against it. We have gone working against nature for too long."
The Prince of Wales cited the widespread environmental damage in India caused by the rush to mass produce GM food.
"Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.
"I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water.
"[The] water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to roost.
"Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture."
He said that the scientists were putting too much pressure on nature.
"If you are not working with natural assistance you cause untold problems. which become very expensive and very difficult to undo.
It places impossible burdens on nature and leads to accumulating problems which become more difficult to sort out."
In a keynote speech last year the Prince of Wales warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless a £15 billion action plan is agreed to save the world's rain forests.
He has set up his own rain forest project with 15 of the world's largest companies, environmental and economic experts, to try to find ways to stop their destruction.
Only two weeks ago British GM researchers lobbied ministers for their crops to be kept in high-security facilities or in fields at secret locations across the country to prevent them from being attacked and destroyed.
They spoke out after protesters ripped up crops in one of only two GM trials to be approved in Britain this year.
Scientists claim the repeated attacks on their trials are stifling vital research to evaluate whether GM crops can reduce the cost and environmental impact of farming and whether they will grow better in harsh environments where droughts have devastated harvests.
Thanks for posting this.
Lots of people don't realize they are eating GM food.
Monsanto scares me. http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm (http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm)
Is there any scientific evidence that GM food is bad for you? There is plenty of economic evidence that it makes food cheaper thereby feeding many poor people who would otherwise go hungry. I think this is basically a bunch of wealthy (comparatively speaking) people with too much time on their hands (which explains the Prince's interest) obsessing about nothing.
Quote from: RiversideGator on August 17, 2008, 10:59:24 PM
Is there any scientific evidence that GM food is bad for you?
Nope. No proof at all.
The argument goes that genetic modification
could produce unintended changed that
could be harmful. They worry that we won't discover any flaws until people start getting cancer.
Of course, the same exact fears should hold true for natural mutations, as well as more traditional genetic manipulation practiced by all farmers in one form or another through selective breeding.
At the end of the day, it's less about health, and more about emotion. Small farms have been dying out fast in the developed world, and lots of people (for whatever sick reason) want to save them. If that means making BS arguments about obvious technological progress, then so be it.
Personally, 3 out of my 4 grandparents were born into farming families. All of them were "victims" of the death of small farms, and forced to find other professions. I am so amazingly grateful for this. I can't even imagine how much worse my life would be if my grandparents and parents had been farmers.
Wow, hell just froze over, Stephen and I agree on something,
Don't worry. Large scale human testing is currently underway. Results forthcoming.
All this talk about GM food makes me think of the seed vault....this makes me worry.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529)
Quote from: stephendare on August 18, 2008, 11:33:15 AM
Quote from: Joe on August 17, 2008, 11:40:07 PM
Quote from: RiversideGator on August 17, 2008, 10:59:24 PM
Is there any scientific evidence that GM food is bad for you?
Nope. No proof at all.
The argument goes that genetic modification could produce unintended changed that could be harmful. They worry that we won't discover any flaws until people start getting cancer.
Of course, the same exact fears should hold true for natural mutations, as well as more traditional genetic manipulation practiced by all farmers in one form or another through selective breeding.
At the end of the day, it's less about health, and more about emotion. Small farms have been dying out fast in the developed world, and lots of people (for whatever sick reason) want to save them. If that means making BS arguments about obvious technological progress, then so be it.
Personally, 3 out of my 4 grandparents were born into farming families. All of them were "victims" of the death of small farms, and forced to find other professions. I am so amazingly grateful for this. I can't even imagine how much worse my life would be if my grandparents and parents had been farmers.
Joe, while I appreciate your comments about the technological changes, and tend to agree with you, on the GM foods, I think you are understating the problems with genetically modified foods pretty vastly.
I totally agree with you that we have been genetically engineering food for thousands of years through selective breeding. You can lay all the benefits of corn and most of our grains directly at the feet of genetic experimentation.
One thing that was more difficult along the few millenium however, was convincing animals, like pigs humans, sheep and salamanders to copulate with tomatoes.
It was even harder, supposing one found a willing pig or a predisposed salamander who was up for the job, to locate or convince a tomato to do anything decisive in the way of offspring after it had been thusly violated.
This is the essence of the 'Frankenfood' designations.
Now we are crossing animal proteins with plant proteins in order to create genetically modified foods.
The resulting hybrid amino acids and proteins are in many cases totally different from any of the sheerly plant or animal varieties. We have no idea what effect these hybrid substances will have on the human body or, more importantly, the delicate brain chemistry which utilizes these proteins.
Its basically like simply offering prozac or any other psychoactive drug for free without telling anyone what it is.
I personally do not understand the crisis to which the Prince is alluding, but I have found that as time goes on, the Prince's various concerns have been legitimized time and again.
Im sure my friend River will agree with me that the amount of cheap planned obsolescent architecture of strip malls and trashy subdevelopments is at least as culture killing as the Prince pointed out 20 years ago. Certainly he presupposes the entire urbanist movement.
But in any case, I dont think its any stretch to say that our policy towards GM foods is irresponsible.
I try not to touch them, and refused to use any of them in any ingredients of the restaurants.
So, any proof that GM foods cause harm to humans?
BTW, I do agree with Prince Charles on architecture. I do think however that he would be better served as future monarch and head of state to stay out of political questions such as should GM foods be sold to the public.
Quote from: stephendare on August 19, 2008, 01:28:37 PM
public health is hardly a 'political' question, River. Where on earth did you come up with that theory?
Its a sign of the sickness of the times, I think. With the radical right, EVERYTHING is a matter of politics. Nothing is about citizenship or patriotism or ideals anymore.
Public health is indeed not a political issue if we have proof that there is a public health threat. ;)
Quote from: stephendare on August 19, 2008, 02:44:09 PM
http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/50-harmful-effects-of-genetically-engineered-ge-genetically-modified-gm-food/
this is too lengthy to post here, but its a terribly informative article and shows the legal and business history of genetically modified food crops.
Definitely a great background document with information as to why certain GM foods are harmful to us.
fooddemocracy.com? :D
Who exactly authored that piece and what are their credentials?
Globalwarminghoax.com passes muster though? Yeah RG, I know where you've been getting your graphics...
I really dont recall every seeing that site. I'll have to check it out though. Thanks for the tip. ;)
(http://www.environmentalcommons.org/image/seed-preemption-map.jpg)
Okay, not to make a very important issue smaller, but this issue is as important, as haunting.
Read more here: http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/the-multiple-ways-monsanto-is-putting-normal-seeds-out-of-reach/
Monsanto's GM crops are the devil. For farmers, for at-home growers. They've copyrighted the genetic code of their GMOS. A bee might visit a GM crop and then might visit your plants, and should a Monsanto detective trespass and collect samples from your crop and find that copyrighted DNA, you'll be sued out the yin yang and at which point did YOU willingly break the "law"? Monsanto even goes as far as to try and prevent farmers from cleaning, storing, and trading their own seeds--that's non-GMO seeds. Monsanto is trying to make it a crime for someone to share their own seeds with their neighbors and friends.
This is a crime. An utter sin. And they have to be stopped. I love Dr. Vandana Shiva's non-cooperation movement. Here's a video of her speaking to a crowd (but she pauses intermittently for a translator) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah-ZeN_ghro