The Farce of GM Food Economics

We live in a bizarre world, where those out to make a quick profit on the back of dying farmers sponsor global prizes that they award to themselves in the hope of what?  Pacifying their conscience? Eye-washing the consumer society?

Monsanto, Syngenta (better known for the neonicotinoid insecticides responsible behind the recent drop in bee population worldwide) and other GM seed companies has been awarded the World Food Prize for their contribution in feeding the world!  What a joke!

The news coming out form independent research is being stifled in order to protect these companies commercial interest.  World wide, the Bt gene introduced in a variety of crops (in India: Bt bringal, Bt tomato, Bt corn, Bt cotton) is giving rise to an evolution in insects resistant to the gene, effectively creating a time-bomb waiting to explode.  The frightening face of GM crops is that it was created to resist herbicides, allowing farmers to use stronger more potent herbicides that the crop could resist and other herbs killed off.  Use of herbicides have increased compared to non-GM crops, and these have been harsher and more poisonous.  The use of GM crop has had the effect of increasing the pollution in the land and waterways.

The rise of resistance to Bt genes among insects means that farmers will now revert to using chemical insecticides, and since our legislators and politicians have handed over the control of our agriculture to these GM companies, traditional seeds have been removed from the market in order to monopolise it.  We are left with an agriculture that is immensely worse off than 2o years ago.

What a miracle!  And these geniuses have the audacity to sponsor the World Food Prize in order to award it to themselves.