Prince Charles speaks out against GM crops and the monopoly of big corporations. Is he right? ?

Question

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7557644.stm

For once, I'm actually on his side. I really think he's got a point about this on 2 fronts.

Firstly, messing with the genetic make up of crops when we don't know the long term outcomes is dangerous.

Secondly, big corporations have a virtual monopoly on producing goods in America and the EU. Small farmers are going out of business or made to try and run operations on ridiculous profit margins. These corporations are multi-national, they get huge subsidies and they have almost a free rein to put whatever they like into our food. They sponsor the scientific studies which are supposed to protect us from harmful products being used, so everything is rigged to suit them.

I'm reading a very good book about this whole subject at the moment:

Eat Your Heart Out: Why the Food Business Is Bad for the Planet and Your Health by Felicity Lawrence. If you're interested in this area, I would definitely recommend reading it.

You may think Prince Charles is a bumptious royal, but perhaps this once he is using his position of being a non-political public figure to raise an issue that seriously needs addressing. Or maybe you still think he's an aristocratic self-opinionated fool, who should keep his mouth out of these issues. Let me know what your thoughts are.

Answer 1

As for GM, plant breeder for years have been developing or breeding the plant a common trait.  It is just in the recent years that people think GM is bad for the human race.

The second issue.  As the year go by, companies buy out and companies grow.  Along the way, the companies patient their product that is sold to farmer.  For example soybeans.  Now there are Round up ready soybean.  The company has a patient on the seed.  The company has the patient on the chemical use on the roundup soybeans.  Round up is a chemical that kill all living plants.  The soybean plant has been breed to break down the chemical and can live.  This method a farmer is in the field less and have great weed control.  There is also round up ready corn.

The choices of business that farmers use year ago is less today.  Companies that have brought out or the dominant company won.  There is only so many acres in production.  Years ago there were several companies providing products.  Today only a hand full and a less acres in production.

What should be done to companies is a big question.  When it is figured out, I would like to hear the answer.

Answer 2

I wouldn't care what Prince Charles thought if he was paying my bills.  

Answer 3

Each to their own, but my opinion is that we need GM to be able to cope with the increasing population and organic is just not the way forward when much food is wasted and whole crops can be wiped out because farmers cannot use pesticides. Which is why I am seriously considering a job in crop science.

Answer 4

Prince Charles, as respectable as his motive is, seems to be barking up the wrong tree. I am an organic gardener, started doing it in the early 1970s and believe strongly in natural food without artificial chemicals. I  compost and do see how mulch farming could do wonders for many farmers growing certain types of crops. But after decades of trying to convince other growers I have learned that although organic methods can make improvements, they cannot take the place of chemicals. Farmers are squeezing by, pouring out tremendous amounts of energy, and when I recommend something for their large-scale operations that will cost them time and extra effort, they have to balance it against the gains I can prove to them on my small scale. Some crops in some places need artificial fertilizers and pest control, period.

IF GM seeds can solve some of the problems that organic methods (or any other methods tried) cannot, then it makes sense to give them a try. Some growers in some countries simply don't have any choice but to strive for higher yields, or varieties that are more pest-resistant or need less water, etc. When "dead zones" in the earth's coastal oceans are tripling every ten years due to algae blooms caused mostly by nitrogen-rich chemical runoff, anything possible to reduce the need for artificial fertilizer is worthy to take a close look at.

You say "messing with the genetic make up of crops when we don't know the long term outcomes is dangerous." Don't forget that selective breeding -- which has given us almost every one of the crops most people eat -- is another way to mess with the genetic makeup. I have yet to read anything that indicates a possible danger to humans from GM food. The only danger seems to be that a GM species hardier than the original could escape into nature and out-compete a native species, theoretically driving it to extinction. Theoretically, though, selective breeding could do the same thing. And, that kind of thing happens anyway, without human intervention.

I have no argument with "the food business is bad." Just, swinging blindly at genetic modification because big companies are making big bucks on it will not remedy the situation. GM is here to stay and it has already proved a Godsend for certain situations. Not one case of danger to the food supply has been reliably cited.

If the big firms "sponsor the scientific studies which are supposed to protect us from harmful products being used," means that "everything is rigged to suit them," then find someone else to sponsor parallel studies. If there is something to be afraid of, surely someone will be able to re-create the same research but with different funding, to see if the results are the same. But simply to accuse with no evidence, what value does that have?

This has nothing to do with Prince Charles or what people think of him.

Answer 5

The problem is not the food itself, it’s that (a) Monsanto will own the seeds and their very genetic code outright (b) they have a history of exploiting their victims to the hilt. http://notnews.today.com/2008/08/17/prin...

Anytime Prince Charles and his family are doing something constructive rather than racing around the countryside killing foxes, shooting endangered birds, and going on Africa hunting safaris, I’m happy.

Answer 6

His points are valid, true, but the other side is that in order to sustain this population, they need food to eat, and smaller individual farmers can not meet the demands on their own. As it is, people are still starving in other countries, not because not enough food is produced in the free countries but because people in starving countries cannot produce enough food for their own country due to wars, pestilence, and lack of good farming ground.

There are very few small farmers due to the reasons you state that could survive in a large world market, but as for some of the accusations you make, your sources have not really done their homework. Most California farmers are subject to high environmental controls and laws concerning the amounts of fertilizers and pesticides in their products, with the result that California produces the highest quality fruits and vegetables in the world. But California farmers work hard to meet market price and consumer demands. They pay out of their pocket the fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides required by the crop conditions, they can't afford to "Put anything they want" into the food they grow.  They have to meet the current health standards concerning the elimination and prevention of food-borne diseases such as salmonella or e. coli - now they can't sell their product if their product is contaminated. The development of fruits and vegetables to resist disease is part of the goal for contract growers to meet demands with consistent produce. Growers don't get paid for poor quality produce! They need to grow and provide consistently good quality produce for a variety of customers - America's supermarket fresh produce, canned vegetables and fruits, frozen foods, and ingredients for prepared foods. But corporations do not put contaminants into the farmer's product, they put the contaminants in the dry-packaged foods in the forms of special flavorings (look at the list of ingredients for your microwave popcorn - the popcorn itself is not grown bad or contain chemicals - it's the butter or cheese powder flavoring on the popcorn that contains the chemicals)

The truth is your sources are putting the blame in the wrong place. They need to blame to food processors that package foods such as breakfast cereals, which used to contain chemicals to extend the shelf life (how fresh the product was over time), cookies, sweet breads and cakes, hotdogs, sandwich meats, and other processed meats, and prepared meals such as canned and dried pasta meals.

Small farmers are NOT going out of business here in California, instead they are enjoying meeting a current demand for local grown fresh produce by supplying to local farmer's markets and independent local grocery stores. Many small farmers are working 40 acres or less growing specialty crops such as ethnic ingredients like herbs and greens specific to home countries like Thailand and Vietnam, or growing specialty fruit varieties.

I won't be reading the recomended book because the author's sources are questionable in trying to make broad accusations for her own agenda.

I also recommend eliminating packaged food from your diet and buying and sustaining local fresh produce, and taking yourself out of the demand for corporate food products.