Yet another piece in The Guardian yesterday from Mark Lynas (“a freelance writer working full-time on climate
change”).
The subject: biotechnology’s role in improving nutrition and
health.
The gist of Lynas’s argument:
- GM means ‘sealing corporate control of the food chain’.
- The ‘biggest factor’ in food prices is people in China and India eating too much.
- Also to blame is US and European ‘addiction to the car’.
- People make this even worse by having children.
Presumably, therefore, governments should grow and
distribute food, people in Asia should not become inconveniently rich so
quickly, we should all stop driving and impose a global One Child policy. Right?
The origin of the author’s ire is soon revealed. GM, he
explains, is wrong because of the implication that it could help tackle hunger
when, in fact, companies are patenting
their discoveries and might therefore sell
their products.
He explains:
“I doubt these companies have any intention of giving out
free seeds to the world's poorest farmers”
So there we have it. No free seeds.
In spite of claiming that he is “not arguing that these
companies are somehow bad or evil” and “not raising scare stories”, this is
exactly what Lynas is doing.
It’s a familiar argument – the evils of profit must face
large global regulation, or else we will see ‘superweeds, bacteria or viruses
run rampant and breed’.
As explored in many scientific discussions and more than one
government report, the scaremongering on GM crops is unfounded and
unscientific.
Mark Lynas is correct on one count – GM is not a one-stop
solution to the food crisis. To tackle the food crisis we primarily need governments to
cease placing huge tariffs and export bans on vital food stuffs.
However, GM can help, and in evaluating its potential we
should examine evidence produced by scientists, rather than the sentiments of a
pseudo-scientific columnist with an ideological opposition to
technologies developed by private companies.