(FinalCall.com) – The diversity of the world’s food supply is being jeopardized by genetically engineered crops, according to some advocates and experts. The consequences of GE crops is that they eliminate diversity, say critics.
“Once the product interacts with the environment and crossbreeds with similar or related species, all acquire the introduced dominant traits and the wide varieties previously in the environment is reduced to one,” according to a published report entitled, “Global and national resistance to GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms),” appearing in the Pan African online publication Pambazuka.
The “erosion” posed by the genetic engineering process is a threat to the “preservation of species” is linked to corporate giants heavily involved in the production of GE crops, reported to Pambazuka. Monsanto and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, as reported in Afrik-News, believe GE crops would “counter food shortages,” and increase the maximum possible “yield” from farms. They also suggest some crops like alfalfa, produced through GE, would be resistant to herbicides.
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Gates, who claims to be trying to end world hunger by growing GE crops, has invested $27 million into the Monsanto Company. But as a result, some countries are rejecting his charity citing high risks that include “new disease vectors, mutated pesticide-resistant insects, resistant superweeds; and (the) contamination of surrounding non-GM (genetically modified) crops,” wrote well-respected osteopathic physician Joseph Mercola on his website, Mercola.com.
In 2008 a report developed by over 400 scientists from 30 governments in developed and developing countries, dubbed the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, was endorsed by 60 countries at a meeting in Johannesburg.
The report concluded “that modern biotechnology would have a very limited contribution to the feeding of the world in the foreseeable future.”
The report also said, “that a viable food future lies in the creative support of ecological agriculture in which small-scale farmers will continue to play a major role.”
According to Pambazuka, there are many more concerns in regard to the cultivation of GE crops. “They thrive best as monocultures and depend largely on inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers. They pose a direct threat to traditional agriculture and the knowledge accumulated over centuries of interactions with the environment.”
In addition, the technology is largely spread by “stealth–pollute, compromise and legalize. It gets accepted where ecosystem is already contaminated beyond remedy,” said the web outlet. Go to Pambazuka.com for the full report.
(Jehron Muhammad writes from Philadelphia and can be reached at [email protected].)
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