Advanced Level >> Themes & Topics >> Letters in support of GM technology. Used as basis for class discussion.
In Support of GM Food
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I'm tired of this uninformed European whining about GM food. To date GM food has caused zero fatalities, and has, in fact, saved the lives of many people in the Third World who can now afford to eat thanks to cheaper food brought about by the higher yield of GM crops.
Anton, USA
As many of you had already written, I am horrified by the amount of bad faith that is written against GM food. It reminds me what we used to read concerning the judgement of Galileo and the Luddites against machines. GM food is an extraordinary event that should be saluted instead of despised, it present us with the opportunity to use less herbicides and pesticides for the same amount of food, without all the hypocrisy of the "organic farming". Any one who has the slightest idea of what was life before this century knows that it was "nasty, brutish, and short" and it is hard to understand the sympathy that the press have for the people who wants to impose it to us again.
Stephane, Le Vaud, Switzerland
Can we determine if the lobby against GM food is not being instigated by vested interests who are keen to prevent cheaper alternatives to their products? Butter mountains, wine lakes, then the famines and undernourished ... how many more must die while the well-fed rub their tummies and talk about this?
William, Singapore
I believe that GM foods have the potential to reduce the amount of herbicides that need to be used. This is of benefit to humans but may not benefit some plants and animals. However what is more important to humans - our welfare or that of other living things? I believe as a human that we should look after out own species first.
Brian, Malvern England
Who can really prove it is wholly organic, as you and I are just laymen in this? We do not grow the crops, neither are we there to ensure total organic treatment. However, in developing countries, GM crops are needed to tackle waning produce in the face of pest invasions and droughts, not for taste or health.
AG, Kenya
Organic food is wasteful of land resources, prone to micro bacterial infections and is not by default better quality than intensive farming produce. Indeed, its static nature implies that any currently beneficial products will soon be superseded by superior GM produce.
Intensive and GM farming however, allow us to encroach upon less land for the same produce, tailor produce to our specific nutritional and environmental requirements and reduce the burdens of labour.
This bizarre affinity to organic methods is borne from imagined risks and a quasi-religious regard for the planet that is not based upon rational ethical principles, but a dogmatic aversion to human innovation.
Dr. M. Moran, UK
Hmmm anti-GM luddites at it again. If we "ban" GM technology for food, where does that leave GM technology for medicine. We have been using GM insulin (for diabetics) and GM-tPA (for heart attacks) for years now. If the Media and the public persist in their scare-mongering we will lose valuable life saving medicines. If we lose our pool of scientists in GM-food industry, this will also threaten GM in medicine as well.
H Ong, UK
If it has passed the standard health and safety tests, I would eat it. I see nothing morally incorrect about GM foods and feel that it is only the uninformed that really go against it!
Matt, UK
When are people going to realise that these new food production experiments hold the key to ending world famine. In case anyone has failed to realise, the World's population is growing at an alarming rate. 'Genetic Engineering' is nothing new - the cross-pollination of plants and flowers has been going on for years. The fact that scientists happen to have identified certain genes and given this process a new name is irrelevant. The sooner the media gets bored of this pointless debate and people start thinking for themselves the better.
Neil, UK
Do the anti-GM food lobby realise that all the food they eat is genetically modified? Our entire modern crops and animals are the result of (in cases) thousands of years of selective breeding to produce varieties of plants and animals with desirable qualities (size, taste, disease resistance and speed of growth). They are genetically quite different from their ancestors. If we could grow only the strains of maize and potatoes used by the American Indians and the cows of the Ancient Britons, most of the world would be starving. GM is merely achieving genetic modification with greater speed and precision. Bring on the jumbo salmon!
Chris, Australia
