I watched a program recently
about this and thought it would be an appropriate and relevant to offer some
view on Genetically Modified Organisms (“GMO”) or Genetically Modified Food
(“GMF”) as it’s commonly referred to.
As someone who likes to be well informed
before expressing my opinion, I spent a number of hours researching including
trolling the internet and trying to seek out someone who could shed some light
on the topic. All that effort was in vain as I
still do not have a definitive view on the topic, primarily because it would
seem that everything written has a predetermined agenda, in other words it’s
phenomenally biased. Moreover it seems
nigh on impossible to find some person who can give you an independent view on
it.
It was just like the program this
last Sunday, in my opinion the organic
apple grower in the Hawkes bay was more concerned about protecting his organic
export sales, than discussing the pros and cons of GMF. His rationale was that the possibility of
cross pollination from GMO crops to non GMO would mean he couldn’t market
himself as GMO free or indeed organic.
The
argument wasn’t about what the actual risk of this happening was or how this
could be safeguarded against. Moreover
the grower thought that the government should not be able to override the
Hawkes Bay district council labelling itself as a GM free zone, which was
essential to the marketing of their apples.
An argument which was pretty farcical given that there is no difference
between Hawkes Bay and other apple growing regions in New Zealand (in terms GMO
crops at least) and if one day we had GMO crops in other regions, then the risk
of cross pollination could of course easily come from another district outside
of the Hawkes Bay, which makes a Hawkes Bay declaration as GME free bloody
stupid (Yes it’s a decision to be determined on a National basis). Note as far as I am aware we don’t have any GMO
crops in this country at all to date.
Although I would be surprised if we are not eating some food already
that has some GMO food ingredients in it from overseas.
The apple grower’s other principal
argument against GMO food was to say “go around the world and ask consumers
what they want?” Yes people with a good
discretionary income (not poor or impoverished people) responded that they
would rather buy organic food (which is not necessarily the same as non GMO food). From my reading it appears most consumers apparently
“buy organic food because they
believe they are avoiding all pesticides”. However one thing I did learn from my reading
of various biased articles was the misnomer that organic farming means no use
of pesticides. Apparently a lot of pesticides are used (and
often more regularly than conventional pesticides) so long as such pesticides
are derived from “natural sources”, it’s okay. Moreover there is some debate about the risk
to human health and the environment with many of these pesticides organic
farmers use. The apples on the program
I watched the other night looked amazing not like the ones grown in my backyard,
that do grow naturally free of any attention from me whatsoever. My point being that to justify your argument
by saying this is what consumers want is pretty weak, when realistically these same
consumers base their opinions on a marketing story that almost certainly
doesn’t disclose all the relevant facts.
Unfortunately I am not in a
position to advance the debate on what we should do in regards to GMO
crops. However I can recommend that if
you want a short article that addresses the pro and cons of the debate, then
google an article “Genetically Modified Food Pros and Cons List” written by a
Crystal Lombardo. It’s a good starting point. From this I agree wholeheartedly with the
following quote: “If used properly, the science behind
genetically modified food could be used to end hunger. If used improperly, the
science could be misused and potentially endanger (sic) our entire food supply.
This means that if we are to pursue this field of food science, we must have
responsible management of the research being done and have third party
independent verification and monitoring of results so that it becomes possible
to distinguish fact from fiction.”
As such I conclude is this is definitely a decision to be
determined by Government having regard to the above quote, not on adhoc basis
by various regional or district Councils.
