About Science and Food
On Jon Stewart’s show this evening, there was a guest talking about the rejection of good science by people who just don’t want to be limited. He was talking about polio vaccine. Now, on a purely emotional basis, I have trouble ignoring this argument because my mother had polio as a child and has spent her entire life struggling with the resulting handicaps.
But he went from there to talk about how GMO grains are necessary to feed people in the future. I don’t know what science he is following, but last I heard GMO seeds generally produce plants that don’t have the capacity to reproduce. And, they are patented by Monsanto. So, if you get a grain that’s half GMO, even by accident, then Monsanto’s going to own the next generation. But, that’s not the worst of it. Nor is this new science.
Take the mule, an admirable beast descended from a horse and a donkey. Well, lets say we are going to invest our future in mules, so we stop supporting horses and donkeys. Maybe we’ll make them illegal. Then we have the lovely mule. Oops. Where are the new mules going to come from? Oh, I see. Monsanto owns a private selection of horses and donkeys which they are charged with preserving for posterity.
Now take the small farmer, somwhere in the third world. He’s growing food for himself and his village. He doesn’t have any money. They do barter in that part of the world. So, the government comes along and says, “Hey, you can increase your output with GMO rice. So here’s some to get you started”. Next year, he’s got to pay for new seed from Monsanto to keep it up. Or maybe, he’ll go with his old stock, but the old seeds mingle with the GMO seeds on the ground from last year. Now, Monsanto owns his crop. Or, he has no seeds to grow. How does this help to feed the starving masses?
Of course you can have huge corporate farms buying the GMO seed year in and year out. But they expect a significant profit for their effort, so they aren’t going to feed the people of the village or the farmer who can no longer afford to farm. But then the governments can buy the food from the big corporate farms and give it to the people. To do that, they’ll have to borrow the money from the WTO or the World Bank. Then, they’ll have to pay it back. But then, since their whole economy is divorced from the people, why bother to feed them?
It’s a dilemma.