PAN

GMOs

February 25^th, 2011

By: Kira Winn

Pajhwok Afghan News

Today in the General Assembly, sparks flew as the delegates discussed the World Food Crisis. The US, the UK, Germany and France spearheaded the nearsighted proposition to bring GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) into third world countries such as Afghanistan as a solution to this problem. They claim that these GMOs would solve all the issues by allowing the developing countries to produce all the food they needed but food being produced by a country doesn’t necessarily mean food in the hands of that country’s people. Multinational companies would control the patents to the seeds and technology needed to produce the food, and would control the farmers that grew it.  This has been exhibited in South Africa which, despite using the GMOs proposed as a solution by many of the first world countries, is still part of the food crisis. This solution is obviously not as effective as it is being proposed to be

There are other problems with the GMOs, such as the fact that they encourage monoculture. Countries such as the US and the UK fail to see this as a problem since they have neglected as of yet to offer so much as a solution.  Then again, it must be easy for the UK to ignore it, seeing as they claim that “[people] are smarter than nature”. Assuming that we human beings, a species like any other, would be able to rise up and triumph over our ecosystem seems nothing more than an arrogant assumption. This is especially true coming from a country hypocritical enough to advise countries such as Afghanistan to use GMOs but side with the European Union, refusing to even import them into their country. In fact, almost all European countries seem to be opposed to feeding GMOs to their general population, but still seem to think that they would be a good way of feeding the hungry in third world countries. Why would countries want to grow such things if there is no real market for them?

Despite some encouraging propositions, such as education as farmers and micro-lending, countries such as the UK, Germany, and France need to stop their hypocritical insistence that third world countries such as Afghanistan, South Africa, Columbia and Iran grow GMOs in their countries when they refuse to grow them or import them themselves.