For more than a decade controversy has raged in the world’s media about whether genetically engineered crops are dangerous, as many environmentalists have long claimed.
Yet… a quiet revolution has been unfolding… In Bangladesh, thousands of smallholder farmers are… successfully growing the world’s first GM food crop expressly developed for poorer countries. Indonesia is not far behind.
Bangladesh’s new crop — a genetically modified eggplant, called “Bt brinjal”, which is resistant to insect pests — is the “GMO” that anti-GMO activists don’t want you to know about…
. . . .
Environmental groups ought to be strong supporters of Bt brinjal…the application of toxic insecticides has been reduced by 80 to 90 percent.
But so deep has anti-GMO ideology embedded itself in the… green movement, that leading voices are unable to admit to any success for the technology they have vilified for so long.
. . . .
…It would be foolish to assert that GM crops will always be good whatever the circumstances. But it is equally foolish to insist — as so many activists do — that they will always be bad.
And it seems particularly unjust when the benefits… are denied to the very people who could benefit from them most — poor, smallholder farmers…
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Quiet ‘GMO’ revolution in the Third World
