The Editor,
Re: "Richmond declared GE-free," News; "GM crops shouldn't be feared," Letters.
It was a clever juxtaposition to tell us about council's support of a GMO-free Richmond, then follow up with a dubious pro-GM letter inside of Friday's paper.
While technocratic "experts" like Mr. Wagner are likely well paid to reassure us against fears over genetic modification, a quick internet search counters his assertions. Even if his "what you can't see won't hurt you" rhetoric was right (which it ain't), the GM genie is already well out of the bottle in our grocery stores, and 10 years research is not a scientific measure of anything (remember DDT).
GM farming is big business out on the land. It was never about saving/feeding humanity. That's just the happy spin they cooked up after selling billions of bags of pesticides and terminator seeds to farmers the world over.
And what's the trade-off for short term higher yields and weed-free farming? Dead soil, suicidal farmers and stillborn children. GM's damage can also be social, going beyond destroying food to ruining farm communities. Just ask Bt cotton growers in India or parents of babies in soy-rich Argentina.
Who would you prefer to trust, your local organic grower with dirty fingers, or the bloody-handed folks at Monsanto who gave us agent orange before turning to save the world (there's your Roundup/agrochemical connection-GMO is largely a front for pushing defoliants, pesticides and fertilizers). Don't listen to the experts; do your own research.
Glen Andersen Vancouver
