Anti GMO Europe killing Africans.

[jclalor 12]

Amazing the continuing denial of science in this world.


http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/05/europes-anti-gmo-stance-is-killing-a-new

[billvon 2,996]

While I agree that the anti-GMO movement is silly and unfounded, claiming that Europe is "killing Africans" by not using GMO's is pretty hyperbolic. It's like claiming that Ben and Jerry's ice cream is killing Africans because they don't use GMO products.

[jclalor 12]

Quote

It's like claiming that Ben and Jerry's ice cream is killing Africans because they don't use GMO products.

No it's not. Not eating ice cream has yet to kill a single human.

Reducing crop and yield size has killed thousands.

[billvon 2,996]

[billvon 2,996]

> Not eating ice cream has yet to kill a single human.

And Europeans not eating GMO's has yet to kill a single human.

[jakee 1,497]

jclalor

Amazing the continuing denial of science in this world.

Sure, but if you want to talk about denial there's so much excess food production on the planet right now that no-one even knows what to do with it.... and people are still starving in sub-saharan Africa.

Market fundamentals appear to be weakening as the world’s top grain producers ponder what to do with so much food.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[GeorgiaDon 362]

I believe the issue is that the European Union has made it clear that they will ban importation of wheat or other crops from Africa if any African country allows the use of GMO wheat (or corn, or soybeans, or cotton, etc). So African countries are put in the position of having to stick with insect and disease susceptible crop varieties or they will lose their main export market.

Several years ago the European Union banned the importation of American blue jeans if they were made with cotton from GMO plants. The EU claims to have concerns about the safety of GMO crops, but the blue jeans example illustrates that that is not the real (or the whole) issue. Rather it is an economic issue. GMO seeds are more expensive to buy, and farmers cannot (legally) save some of the current years's seed production to plant next years crop. This makes GMO seeds more expensive (in terms of up-front cost) for small farmers, who dominate European agriculture. The situation is different for large corporate farms, which can afford the up-front cost and reap higher profits down the road due to less insecticide use and higher yields. Small farmers have a lot of political clout in Europe, and have been able to drive their anti-GMO agenda with great success, hiding behind a smokescreen of safety concerns. African farmers are simply collateral damage.

Don

_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

[tkhayes 348]

starving people has never had anything to do with the amount of food available.