by Karl Haro von Mogel on 3 November 2009 Maywa Montengro has a commentary on Seed Magazine about the opposition to genetic engineering that’s worth taking a read, and it’s right on-topic with what we’ve been talking about with anti-science. Here is a taste of A Natural Obsession.
When delegates from 192 nations arrive in Copenhagen in December for the UN COP15 summit, they will confront a 181-page draft negotiation text, 2,000 bracketed passages still in dispute, and just 11 days in which to come to some sort of consensus. To power them through these discussions, Denmark has promised a smorgasbord of ecologically minded fare: All water will be tap (not bottled), tea and coffee will be fair trade, and the food menu will be no less than 65 percent organic.
Though undoubtedly well-intentioned, this last provision is troubling, but not because anyone really cares about the provenance of Ban Ki-Moon’s turnip greens. Rather, it suggests a willful and dangerous ignorance about the tenuous state of global agriculture, and the prospects for feeding 9 billion people while also addressing biodiversity loss, water shortage, and, yes, climate change.
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 18 September 2009 The USDA Report by Cyndi Barmore, The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production, has recently been pulled from the USDA website. This is the USDA’s explanation:
“On May 26, 2009, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) posted a Global Agriculture Information Network (GAIN) report titled, “The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production.” This report should have been accompanied by a clear statement that the report does not represent the policy of the United States Government, and given this, the report has been removed from the agency’s Web site. It should be noted that USDA’s National Organic Program regulations exclude the use of genetically engineered organisms in organic production. Additionally, FAS has no role in the administration of the National Organic Program.”
It turns out that there was a resounding negative response from certain organizations that do not like genetic engineering – and the very thought of organic + biotech is disconcerting. It led to a pile of emails sent in the USDA’s direction.
The Organic Consumer’s Association told a whopper when they first heard about it:
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by Karl Haro von Mogel on 3 August 2009 (Hat tip to Southest Farm Press)
Cyndi Barmore authored a report for the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service titled The Unexplored Potential of Organic-Biotech Production. It was published on May 26, 2009, but I just heard about it now. Here’s the introduction:
The organic movement rejects biotechnology as inherently contradictory to its fundamental goal of promoting environmental protection in agriculture. European organic promoters in particular stress respect for nature over yield maximization, campaigning for a return to traditional production methods and inputs. [1] In reality, the divide between organics and biotechnology is an artificial construction maintained by ideology rather than science. A governmental decision to change organic regulations to permit the use of biotechnology could have far-reaching policy implications for global agriculture. Allowing producers to gain organic certification for biotech crops could encourage the development of a new type of environmentally sustainable agricultural production with greater benefits for the consumer.
The report talks about several biotech traits that could benefit organic growing systems, including
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by Pamela Ronald on 15 February 2009 By the year 2050, the Earth’s population will double. If we continue with current farming practices, vast amounts of wilderness will be lost, millions of birds and billions of insects will die, and the environmental cost will be immeasurable. Clearly, the world needs a better way to meet the demand for increased food production.
To meet the growing need to feed the world’s population in an environmentally friendly way will require combining the technologies of genetic engineering and organic farming.
To successfully marry these two technologies we will need to overcome long held animosity between scientists, supporters of organic farming and conventional farmers. We will also need to address the antagonism some feel toward the idea of genetic engineering.
The recent debate on the Big Island over genetically engineered crops pitted organic coffee farmers against researchers and the biotech industry, with some organic farmers voicing concern that genetically engineered crops threaten their livelihood and agricultural philosophy.
However, it appears their concerns about food safety are driven more by technological anxiety than by science.
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