> uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
>
>> Of course, many aid organisations - often heavily influenced by
>> Western green campaigns - have attacked the emphasis on GM
>> technology, calling it a "technical fix" that does little to address
>> the real social and economic causes of world poverty and hunger.
>> They said the same several decades ago when widespread famine was
>> predicted to follow a population explosion. The population explosion
>> materialised but the famine did not. The reason was that while
>> others argued for social reform, pioneering plant breeders launched
>> the green revolution and saved millions from starvation.
>
> Shiva - and Perelman - deny that modern farming is massively more
> productive than traditional techniques, right? So is this wrong?
> Isn't it true that India has massively increased grain production
> without increasing area under cultivation?
It depends on what you mean by "more productive" Increases rice production for *whom*? WHO is the beneficiary of that increased production? Read the subject line of the follow post.
Also: It's *disingenous* to speak on this topic as if the plants in question are simply hybrids, and the goal is to feed more people, they aren't, they are organisms previously non-existant in our biosphere, and the motive is profit... Right?
To: NEWSROOM-L at LISTS.NETSPACE.ORG Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 12:04 PM Subject: Re: [NEWSROOM-L] Farmers' Seeds Outlawed in Iraq
> http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/
>
> does it
>
> Order 81 section 51 is what specifically does the "outlawing"
>
> what the whole thing does is to model IRAQ IP law on the US vesrion -
> gives the right of the government or Monsanto to sue farmers for
> infringement.
> <...>
>
I'll reiterate:
<...> Call me a "hippie", but I'd rather eat food grown with care, than "understanding", because that "understanding" is dangerously incomplete, and biosphere damaging. For instance, insects ARE part of the farming process, and they are only pests because corporate profits (not the ability to feed billions of people) ABSOLUTELY DEPEND on monocropping.
The insects,they pollinate plants, and aerate soil. (and eat some too, as wages)
So we create GMO crops which are deadly to butterflies. (The plant itself, not the pesticide the plant is resistant to...)
That's how we thank and understand the Earth... As a conquered crust, not as our very important lifelong companion.
Getting rid of insects would be wasting the time of our primitive farmer... it wouldn't matter, wouldn't affect his yield positively (except short term) or nutritional quality to the plus, either <...> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050822/017779.html
Signed, A concerned citizen of the technocratic state.