GMO Africa

Influential UK magazine roots for GM foods

The influential UK magazine, Country Life, this week editorialized on the controversial issue of genetically modified (GM) foods. The editorial’s author, Mark Hedges, strongly vouched for GM foods, a stance which earned him barbs and ridicule from anti-biotech groups like the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FoE).

In this editorial entitled, Time to Love GM Foods, Hedges, among other things, decried the unorthodox means anti-GM foods campaigners employ to blackmail GM crops field trials. Greenpeace, he wrote, ought to be condemned loudly for destroying genetically modified crops test sites. (Last week, on this blog, in a post entitled, Stop This Violence Against Science, I, also, railed at those who use violence to frustrate scientists’ work, especially on GM crops trials.)

Hedges, rightly, reminded critics that the world’s population is fast growing, increasing the demand for more food. And because land for cultivation is quickly dwindling, Hedges warned against the ongoing campaign by the Green lobby to demonize agricultural biotechnology. Rather, Hedges advised, everything must be done to ensure the technology behind GM crops – crop genetic engineering - reaches the most vulnerable, especially in the developing world. Hedges regretted that the “… the refusal of a rich and well-fed country such as Britain to exploit its agriculture to the full could soon be regarded as immoral.”

And to those questioning the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Hedges reminded them that “Genetic modification is a means of speeding up the process of selective breeding that’s been practised for millennia.”

Perhaps, the most important point that Hedges raises is the hypocrisy of the Green lobby, which has been waging a relentless campaign against global warming, while refusing to support GM crops, which some experts believe have the potential to curb greenhouse emissions.

Hedges has every justifiable reason to rail at the anti-GM foods lobby groups. Most, if not all, are misguided in their criticism of GM crops. They’re mostly driven by phobia and hatred towards multinational biotech corporations such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Bayer. Criticism of GM foods, I have always argued, should be directed at scientists and not corporations. Biotech corporations merely implement scientists’ work.

And I must emphasize that the Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth of this world have every right to point out flaws that might be inherent in genetic engineering, or any other agricultural technology, but such criticism must always be informed by science.