The following is an edited excerpt.
Frederick Kaufman has penned a provocative article for Slate’s Future Tense column in which he makes the case for open-source genetically modified foods. “It will help fight climate change,” he says, “and stick one in Monsanto’s eye.” What’s more, it’s an approach that still favors scientific advancement.
Kaufman says that GMOs have increased agriculture’s dependance on expensive “inputs” — the proprietary seeds and herbicides that have made multinationals like Monsanto and Dow so profitable. At the same time, transgenic crops are increasingly being perceived as a source of genetic pollution.
Could open-source GMOs bring down Monsanto at last?
“The GMO story has become mired in the eco-wrecking narrative of industrial agriculture,” he writes, “and that is too bad for those who understand the real risks of climate change and discern our desperate need for innovation.”
The answer, says Kaufman, is to go open-source
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