The prince and the pea

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Posted at 11:36AM, 15 August 2008 by Graham Holliday - Blogger

The GM crops debate rears its head again. This time Prince Charles weighs in warning of environmental disaster should the GM scientists be let loose on England's green and pleasant land. There's a lot of debate about whether or not the Prince was right to speak out - as if he can't have a voice like the rest of us - but he is obviously very passionate about the subject.

"I think it's heading for real disaster," he said. "If they think this is the way to go... we [will] end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness."

The crux of the Prince's argument is, as Graham Harvey says, the threat to food security,

"The widespread adoption of GM crops may well threaten the world's food supply. While GM technology may not be the direct cause of such horrors, it will perpetuate the system of industrial agriculture that makes them inevitable."

I understand these arguments and I can worry with the best of them over what it all means for the future of food supply, the environment and all the rest of it. However, my own concern is who the hell will want to eat this stuff?

Organic goods are already the preserve of the middle classes.

It sure won't be the rich. Organic goods are already the preserve of the middle classes and I very much doubt price slashing GM greens will find a way into the pantries of Mayfair and Kensington. It'll be the poor who eat them and the poor they get exported to.

The same goes for cloned meat. Given a choice, what would you rather slip into the supermarket trolley? A cloned T-bone and a bag of GM spuds or Mother Nature's own fair produce? The fact that consumers in the EU are really not that enamoured with eating GM crops should at least go some way to discouraging the farmers to start producing it. However it appears some farmers, at least in Wales, are more open-minded to the idea of farming GM than you might imagine.

Comments

katyrouth

17 August 2008, 12:23PM
katyrouth

You are completely right Graham - the people who will be given this food will be the poorer groups, not just in Britain but across the world. And that is the problem that I think Charles was trying to address - poor countries will rapidly become dependent for seed supplies on huge, profit driven multinational companies, with little to no concern for any effect they have on the lives/livelihoods/environments.

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katyrouth

17 August 2008, 12:24PM
katyrouth

Sorry, didn't finish my sentence! Should read: ...of the people they are shipping their products to.

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threelittlepigspork

23 August 2008, 1:17PM
threelittlepigspork

Good on Prince Charles for sticking his neck out on this issue. The trouble is we're already eating gm crops indirectly through the meat we eat.Most animal food contains gm cereals already, but of course this is done on the quiet so no one really knows about it. We have a small gm free, free range pork company so have sourced gm free animal food from a company in called Hi Peaks food.It's more expensive though and we found it very difficult to find. I can pass on the details if there's anyone else out there wanting gm free animal food.

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