
There is a price to pay for technology. Often, it is the environment, and eventually the world’s peoples, that pay this hefty price. ‘The costly development of technologies like GE as ‘solutions’ to world hunger or climate change, mask their real socio-economic, environmental and political causes.’
Contrary to suggestions that genetically engineered (GE) crops ‘will help to mitigate the impacts of climate change, a study on GE soya showed that the modified plants needed 2-5 times more herbicides; a boon for the companies who make both the seeds and the herbicides.’
Citizens of the world are now aware that ‘the current industrial farming system, which is dependent on fossil fuels and chemical inputs and gives scant regard to common goods, is not sustainable from an environmental, economic and social point of view.’
According to Greenpeace’s EU agricultural policy director, Mark Contiero, “Farmers are rejecting GE crops and are turning to ecological farming. They do not want to be at the mercy of bullying multinationals that are threatening to take control of our food.” Farmers attest to the ‘disastrous consequences of GE contamination.’
Sustainable agriculture really means ecological farming that ‘produces nutritionally rich and chemical-free food, at the same time as protecting biodiversity and nutrient-rich soils. In contrast, the heavy use of chemical herbicides required for GE and conventional agriculture is damaging to crops and the environment.’
Via Greenpeace