Grounds for a fight: Farmer protection battle plans take root

[nosmokes]

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Grounds for a fight: Farmer protection battle plans take root

By Kathryn Casa and Christian Avard | Vermont Guardian
posted December 2, 2005
It was the day before Thanksgiving, and Vermont Agriculture Secretary Steve Kerr was thinking about food. Not turkey and stuffing, though. Kerr was focused on how genetically modified crops might ease world hunger, and how liberal, well-fed Vermonters have no right to uproot a possible solution while millions starve.
“This debate has been about selfishness,” declared Kerr. “We live in a society that is too well fed. What’s our biggest food problem in this country? It’s obesity. We have the luxury of debating this fraudulent issue while people are starving.”
Kerr is unabashedly enthusiastic about the promise that genetically modified (GM) crops like Monsanto’s “golden rice” — enhanced with vitamin A to combat blindness — hold for the developing world.
Likewise, he has little patience for Vermont skeptics’ go-slow approach, rooted in concerns that the organisms could have adverse environmental and health implications.
Other nations are putting the brakes on this technology. Swiss voters last week passed a five-year ban on the use of genetically modified plants and animals in farming, and China has dramatically slowed plans to produce the world’s first genetically modified rice for human consumption.
That doesn’t dissuade Kerr.
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complete articlehere

[ecoalex]

1. Golden Rice hype is bullshit, hardly any more Vitamin A

It's well proven plus the farmers would not be able to save their seed, or must buy rights when their rice variety get's pollinated from the GMO rice in the wind from 3 miles away. GMO is serfdom to Monsanto, and the others.Hybrid seeds are bad enough, organic , or sustainable farming with open pollinated varieties makes for healthy food, not the GMO genetic protein poisoned untested crap the rethugs are trying to force on the world.