[p2p-research] controversy: GM foods and organic agriculture

[Kevin Flanagan]

Hey,

The general line I come across from looking into this stuff online is that
GM is promoted by big agro business as a solution to world hunger. I hear
pro GM journalist and Politicians rehash this regularly.
A quick look at monsanto's website and you will see this is a major part of
how they promote GM.
Lots of nice 'green' words there too like 'sustainability'..
http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto_today/2009/world_without_hunger.asp

Couching the GM debate in such arguments is a marketing trick. Shifting the
focus of discussion from GM to the 'bigger' issues of World Hunger.

if you support ending world hunger you support GM
If you dont support GM your evil and do not care about solving hunger and
poverty..

if your for GM your for science and technology
if your against GM your backward

Its win win for GM

A permaculturalist friend of mine visited Ethiopia last year. We where
discussing her experience and she described how surprised she was to find
that Ethiopia at least where she visited was very green with plenty of
fertile land. The problems of poverty and hunger as she described where not
for lack of fertile soil but because many people through crisis and
displacement had lost the knowledge and skills needed to work the land
sustainibly and as such where left dependent on aid.

Ryan you seem to have some experience of life in Africa, I dont and I dont
want to make generalizations but is there some truth in the accessment
above?

On whether organic and GM can work together..
I dont think you cant sell GM food with an organic label
its still GM so its just not organic.

Here is a recent blog post from Permaculture.org.au

Doctors warn to avoid genetically modified food -
http://permaculture.org.au/2009/05/20/doctors-warn-avoid-genetically-modified-food/

There are some scary films about GM you can watch online -
"The world according to monsanto" is one
http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=the-world-according-to-monsanto&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#


Regards

Kevin Flanagan
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