********* 1]Diminishing returns to increasing complexity. The nutritive value from spending billions of $$ a year to garner, say a 5-10 % increase in nutritive value is bogus considering how much of an increase was achieved by older breeding methods; themselves a diminutive increase over natural selection. http://dieoff.com/page134.htm . The $$ would probably be better spent re-engineering the chemical industry.
2]Precautionary principle. We just don't know enough about genetic cascades, jumping genes etc. Here the cue comes from all the aquatic ecosystems that have been slammed by invasive species via global shipping routes.
>Left can't be against GM for technical reasons since all bio-scientists
agree that direct manipulation of genes is far more efficient and reliable
than the old-fashioned inbreeding for desired traits. they agree, too, that
there are absolutely NO differences in nutritive value of GM food over any
other agricultural methods.
>on balance, GM foods offer the third world better food sources than
formerly, if the GM providers can get the food to the people who need it.
3] Then why spend the $$$ that would be better spent on health clinics for the poor or land ownership reform or water treatment facilities. Have you looked at the nightmare called the current global intellectual property rights regime? If that regime had been in place 250 years ago the US would not be arrogant empire it is today [I realize this entails a paradox]. The larger question is why seed libraries are called banks. We are totally capable of designing much better property rights regimes that would lead to far more equitable terms of trade and help put a floor under agricultural commodity prices.
>so what's the beef? because GM undermines traditional farming methods and
its "workers"? because successful GM food might favor capitalist production
methods that might undermine the interests of its adversaries?
norm
5]The planet got by for billions of years without capitalism. Capitalism exacerbates our already problematic proclivities to be a major patch disturbance [as the ecologists put it]. Any democratically mediated trajectory away from such a huge ecological footprint produced by our species would be nice; and there are lots of indications that this can be done without any Malthusian attitude whatsoever. It's about tracing the coevolution of technology, cognition and property that lies at the heart of the issue. Micromanaging genetic landscapes for profit is a poor substitute for thinking macroecologically about how to steer science away from mere commodification for profit concerns.
>if the GM providers can get the food to the people who need it.
6]There's the rub. It's about the terms of trade and operationalizing a different logistics paradigm [shipping, trucking etc.] for getting all the food we already produce to those who need it. There's no food shortage. There's just a fucked up political climate for effecting different logistics priorities.
Ian
"...Fears generated science as uncontrollable anxiety" [Bill Nelson "The Futurist Manifesto"]