Problems

This issue is still being hotly debated. Good.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), April 22, 1999

Answers

This one is a major issue in New Zealand.

We have largely avoided GM foods. We market lots of pesticide and chemical free food stuffs on global markets. I have yet to hear a convincing argument for allowing agri-business to commandeer food production.

Placing monopoly power of food in the hands of the few seems a bad idea when almost anyone can grow their own food.

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), April 22, 1999.

Mike, you might like to see this site:

http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/forum/

explained below, at which site there are other links:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000154642417163&rtmo=VZjPGkkx&atmo =99999999&pg=/et/98/12/8/npri08.html

ISSUE 1292, Tuesday 8 December 1998

Prince launches online debate on genetically modified crops IN the first online forum on his recently launched official web site, the Prince of Wales yesterday called for people to have their say on the controversial issue of genetically modified food.

Readers are invited to respond as to whether such crops are needed. The Prince states that mixing genetic material from species that cannot breed naturally "takes us into areas that should be left to God". He says: "We should not be meddling with the building blocks of life in this way." While acknowledging that genetic manipulation could lead to major advances in medicine, agriculture and the good health of the environment, he warns that advanced technology brings its own dangers.

He says: "I am not convinced we know enough about the long-term consequences for human health and the environment of releasing plants (or, heaven forbid, animals) bred in this way. I suspect that planting herbicide resistant crops will lead to more chemicals being used on our fields, not fewer. But this isn't the whole story. Such sterile fields will offer little or no food or shelter to wildlife, and there is already evidence that the genes for herbicide resistance can spread to wild relatives of crop plants, leaving us with weeds resistant to weedkiller."

Warning that genetic material does not stay where it is put, that pollen is spread by the wind and by insects, and that GM crops can contaminate conventional and organic crops growing nearby, he says: "Major problems may, as we are assured, be very unlikely, but if something does go badly wrong with GM crops we will be faced with a form of pollution that is self-perpetuating. I don't think anyone knows how to clean up after that sort of incident, or who would have to pay for it."

-- Only Slightly Modified Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 22, 1999.