So the LA Times has this story about genetically modified corn. Basically: this corn has vitamins that enable folks to get more nutrition from this product. I’m not going to insert a rant about GMOs. But this gives me a lot of pause. In low-yield, high risk agricultural areas, is it really a great idea to promote more mono-culture? And I can’t help but wonder about the creating of community health dependence on a crop that is likely pattened and owned by a company. Call me old fashioned, but to quote akphd, I’d rather, “create social systems in which people can actually access balanced diets with adequate nutrition.”
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Property rights issues aside, I’m supportive of this type of genetic modification. I’m opposed to modifications that influence the rest of the ecosystem (anti-fungal, anti-predatory mods). The property stuff is nonsense, and you’re right that what all genetic modification has encouraged is monoculture and dependence on corporate farming. The answer. Piracy.
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Genetically engineering nutrition into an otherwise nutritionally void food is interesting, but as sherkat points out it also creates dependence on commercial farming, and that is not an appropriate solution for developing countries (or any country, IMO).
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I’d also rather, “create social systems in which people can actually access balanced diets with adequate nutrition.” But that doesn’t mean I object to technical means of increasing nutrition where it’s possible or that the technological advance gives me pause. What I usually object to has nothing to do with GMO per se and everything to with commercial, financial, and political systems that accompany the deployment of many GMO foods. It’s possible to imagine a better GMO organism and, in a few cases, we’ve seen exactly this.
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