From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Thu Apr 26 2001 - 08:17:22 MDT
>From: Spike Jones <spike66@attglobal.net>
>Harvest of Fear, yes, that was an excellent and surprisingly
>well balanced treatment. The star of the show was the Kenyan
>scientist, for she helped me realize that I did not even begin
>to understand the problem of starvation in Africa.
I thought she was great too, I also liked the guy in Mexico who
worked with producing plants that could function in high aluminum
soils, the papaya on Hawaii were also good.
>The anti-GMers argue that giving the rural Africans GM will
>only make them dependent upon western technology. But
>what is the alternative? If the west gives food to the underfed
>Africans, it still has an enormous cost by the time it gets to
>its intended recipients, for the transportation costs are
>enormous. Rural Africa lacks the transportation infrastructure,
>such as trucks, which would be useless anyway for they
>lack adequate roads. Often supples must be hauled in
>wheelbarrows by hand. This in addition to the fact that
>the rural African farmers have their pride, and are not
>beggars.
I think these were good examples of biotech, along with the
"Golden" rice. I think things like "Roundup" anything are bad
because they continue the bad practice of argricultural runoff of
pesticide. I'm still out, but leaning negatively on BT corn and
other products.
The most important part of the show I still feel dealt will the
issue of labeling. It was clear from the focus groups that if the
industry labels it has a future, but if it continues to resist it
faces a war.
Brian
Member:
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