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Pastimes : Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike McFarland who wrote (71)	11/30/1999 8:18:00 AM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103

Genetically modified food and Mr. Rifkin See "Antibiotech Effort Bloomed Despite Little Funding and Lack of Consensus" By STEVE STECKLOW, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL today. This Rifkin fella seems a bit over the top, maybe way over the top judging by the quote the Journal got from him (GMO foods, with respect to new technology, will become "the single greatest failure in the history of capitalism...") Don't get me wrong--I'm all for organic, and only partly because I can afford it. But if GMO foods reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides, then what is not to like. That is oversimplifying it, but that is the main point to GMO I think. I am certainly aware of the balance between living cheap and living well, I'd love to have a private vegetable garden from which I could pick nothing but organic fresh veggies, but I seem to remember from my last garden that it was quite a battle with pests, you can expect some veggies to fail. That is unacceptable if you want to feed the world. Do people really worry about feeding the world--I could afford to go totally non-GMO and also organic, but this is not an alternative for impoverished nations. Expensive Organic foods might bring peace of mind: My wife and I have to endure yet another ultrasound-- if this baby turns out to have problems you can be sure I'll be wondering what junk in the environment did this to us, atmospheric pollutants, pesticides, what about chlorinated floridated tap water, quite a list out there. I certainly wont be blaming GMO foods! A recent opinion in Nature mentioned that one of the big problems with Organic farming is the reliance on Cow manure--see how everybody always has to take their point to extremes (natural rock fertilizers and green manure, and allowing a field to lie fallow and accepting lower yeilds for doing all that are more is a better way to go organic). What is my point...well it is that people never seem to know how to pick the right enemies. Boy, if we just got rid of pig farms and lawn pesticides in this country --now that would be the right place to start! Anyway the fella in Nature...let's see here--that would be Anthony Trewavas, page 231 of 18 Nov, 99 Nature--he made a few very good points (setting the cow manure slip up aside). One point was that the movement of non-native species around the globe is obviously a much bigger threat to local gene pools than the threat presented by GMO crops. Much Food Many Problems was the commentary-- Nature has had quite a lot of GMO news and articles of late. Sure hope I don't flip out and turn into some green eyed radical if baby McFarland does indeed have problems. But rather than going completely organic, and taking up this radical cause against GMO foods, maybe I'll just blame God and his cosmic rays. And that is food for thought.