Big vs. Little
Why is the United States picking on poor little Cyprus? Product placement. It seems that Cyprus wants to put American genetically modified food on shelves separate from all the other food. The U. S. says that would stigmatize the gm food and “harm bilateral ties.” So America is flexing its muscles to make Cyprus stop this segregation of the food. See the following news story:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050706/sc_nm/food_cyprus_biotech_dc_1
I don’t know if I agree that putting the gm food on a separate shelf would necessarily stigmatize the food. If the genetically modified food is so good, then why not put it on a separate shelf so that people can find it easier? It seems as if you wouldn’t want people getting the non-modified stuff by mistake. But seriously, all this brouhaha is not about the science, and it’s not about health, and it’s not about nutrition. It’s all about commerce and money. The corporations don’t want us to think about that, though.
“Advocates of biotechnology say that (gm food) . . . will help eradicate world hunger by improving the food supply.” First, is it really improving the food supply or is it just changing it so that it can be patented and controlled by large corporations? I think it is the latter. And second, you can help eradicate world hunger by getting food to people. In some ways it doesn’t matter which food. I would maintain that a failure to get the food to the people is the main cause of world hunger, not that there is something wrong with the food and that it needs to be tinkered with by scientists and CEOs. Also, I think people should be able to choose what food they eat, and they shouldn’t be made to eat gm food if they don’t want to.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050706/sc_nm/food_cyprus_biotech_dc_1
I don’t know if I agree that putting the gm food on a separate shelf would necessarily stigmatize the food. If the genetically modified food is so good, then why not put it on a separate shelf so that people can find it easier? It seems as if you wouldn’t want people getting the non-modified stuff by mistake. But seriously, all this brouhaha is not about the science, and it’s not about health, and it’s not about nutrition. It’s all about commerce and money. The corporations don’t want us to think about that, though.
“Advocates of biotechnology say that (gm food) . . . will help eradicate world hunger by improving the food supply.” First, is it really improving the food supply or is it just changing it so that it can be patented and controlled by large corporations? I think it is the latter. And second, you can help eradicate world hunger by getting food to people. In some ways it doesn’t matter which food. I would maintain that a failure to get the food to the people is the main cause of world hunger, not that there is something wrong with the food and that it needs to be tinkered with by scientists and CEOs. Also, I think people should be able to choose what food they eat, and they shouldn’t be made to eat gm food if they don’t want to.
posted by Ed Bremson, MFA @ 11:40 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:55 PM,
Anonymous said…
There are interesting effects that the Genetic Modification process has. I love peppers red, orange, green (there are even purple ones).
I saved up a bag of several thousand pepper seeds to plant in various places that are over-watered and have plenty of sun.
So after planting the seeds all around town I checked back and not one of the (thousands!) of seeds germinated.
This is one reason farmers in Europe object to GM crops; you have to buy the next years seed from the Ag companies. Here in the US wethevoters who hold part of our garden crop for seed are going to be wondering why a system that worked for a couple of hundred years, doesn't anymore. Steve Lee.
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