Food Shortage and GM

[Pawn Power]

As the world begins to starve it's time to take GM seriously

With the Earth's population continuing to soar, it will be the poor who go hungry, not the eco-warriors destroying modified crops




As front pages go, the cover of Nature is scarcely a stunner. It depicts two rows of trees facing each other across the page. One row is tatty, the other clean and healthy. And apart from a few grubby bushes in the background, that's your lot. It makes a gardening catalogue look exciting.


But this restrained imagery rewards closer inspection. Those trees, bearing papayas, are growing in a Hawaiian plantation and the difference between the two rows has critical importance to the world's mounting food crisis.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/27/gmcrops.food

[Vanguard1917]

The eco-worriers' attitude towards biotechnology is a good example of their reactionary nature. They certainly have a lot to answer for.

However, it would be a mistake to place all the blame on environmental activists - who in many ways remain marginal - for anti-GM attitudes and GM bans. In reality, anti-science and anti-technology attitudes come from the heart of bourgeois society - from the establishment itself, which encourages a climate of fear and anxiety about progress and development.

[BobKKKindle$]

GM crops can be used to increase the output of food. However, this does not mean that the extensive use of GM crops will enable us to feed the hungry, because the problem with food is not that we don't have enough, rather, hunger arises as a result of the way in which food is distributed, through the market system, which limits food to those that are able to pay for it. GM crops allow agricultural firms to exercise enhanced control over food producers through the use of terminator genes, which causes second-generation seeds to become infertile, so that farmers are forced to keep purchasing seeds, resulting in a shift of power away from the producers. This means that fighting against the adoption of GM crops within the framework of capitalism is a credible position for Socialists.


In reality, anti-science and anti-technology attitudes come from the heart of bourgeois society - from the establishment itself, which encourages a climate of fear and anxiety about progress and development.

How does the bourgeoisie have a material interest in slowing the development of new technology? The most aggressive proponents of GM foods have been large agricultural firms (for example, Monsanto) because they own the property rights to these crops and so would benefit from widespread use. The WTO has also consistently rules against regulations preventing the import of GM foods, citing the lack of proven harms as a basis for allowing free trade.

[Severian]

GM crops can be used to increase the output of food. However, this does not mean that the extensive use of GM crops will enable us to feed the hungry, because the problem with food is not that we don't have enough, rather, hunger arises as a result of the way in which food is distributed, through the market system, which limits food to those that are able to pay for it.

True. But that does not mean we should oppose increasing food production.

And BTW, if we're going to discuss the present worldwide food price crisis, there's another cause sold as "green" involved:

Turning food into fuel.


GM crops allow agricultural firms to exercise enhanced control over food producers through the use of terminator genes, which causes second-generation seeds to become infertile, so that farmers are forced to keep purchasing seeds, resulting in a shift of power away from the producers. This means that fighting against the adoption of GM crops within the framework of capitalism is a credible position for Socialists.

No, it means we should fight to take control of this technology out of the hands of the capitalists. Because not only seeds, but all kinds of production inputs are sold by capitalists to working farmers, intensifying the control and exploitation of working farmers.

That's the progressive, rather than reactionary position: not to oppose technological progress and economic growth, but to fight for working people rather than the bosses to control and benefit from it.

If you're going to oppose GM seeds on this basis, you might as well oppose a lot of other agricultural technologies, even tractors. That'd be more consistent.


How does the bourgeoisie have a material interest in slowing the development of new technology?

The bourgeoisie as a whole doesn't, but neither does the working class. Increased economic production is one of the necessary conditions for communist society. Even under capitalism, technological progress has made possible an increasing standard of living for the working class. We had to fight for a larger share of the growing pie, but we can't win what isn't there.

And there are conflicting interests within the capitalist class. European capitalists, who are behind in the development of this technology, have an interest in blocking U.S. crop or seed exports under the pretext of stopping GM.

Not surprisingly, many middle-class "left" and "Green" forces have lined up behind European agri-business.


The WTO has also consistently rules against regulations preventing the import of GM foods, citing the lack of proven harms as a basis for allowing free trade.

Which reflects the strength of the U.S. over the E.U.

The WTO is not an independent force, rather an arena for the conflicts of competing capitalist powers.

[KC]

Corporations are actually using this food crisis to push GM crops on countries which before refused to purchase them. Many times companies hold patents on these strains being sold, and they use that to their advantage (some won't grow without a certain fertilizer sold by the same company, for example). Also, being genetically nearly identical, the system becomes very fragile; instead of having small sections of crops vulnerable to certain diseases (?) the entire country's crop supply becomes at risk.

[Vanguard1917]

GM crops allow agricultural firms to exercise enhanced control over food producers through the use of terminator genes, which causes second-generation seeds to become infertile, so that farmers are forced to keep purchasing seeds, resulting in a shift of power away from the producers.

This justifies a fight against capitalism, not technology.

Also, i would argue that the vast majority of anti-GM campaigners oppose biotechnology, not primarily because of its effects on small farmers in the developing world, but from a neo-Malthusian, environmentalist hostility to technological progress. The same eco-worriers who are likely to champion 'sustainable development' - i.e. small-scale and localised economic development - in the developing world, which suggests that they're not really concerned about poor countries at all.



How does the bourgeoisie have a material interest in slowing the development of new technology? The most aggressive proponents of GM foods have been large agricultural firms (for example, Monsanto) because they own the property rights to these crops and so would benefit from widespread use.


And various other companies (e.g. food companies and supermarket giants) have led bans on GM. Not to mention the EU ban.

The truth is that, today, the Western bourgeoisie and its political representatives are increasingly gutless in standing up for technological progress (and economic development in general) - to an unprecedented degree.

Whereas in more dynamic times the ruling class may have been unflinching proponents of innovation and development in productive technology, in today's stagnant West they're increasingly on the defensive. This lack of self-confidence at the core of bourgeois society creates a reactionary culture of anxiety about progress throughout Western society.

And in the virtually total absence of a working class movement putting forward a progressive alternative, backward ideas concerning development prevail. The rise of environmentalism in the last two decades - from a marginal grass-roots movement to playing a central part of ruling class ideology - is a product of this.

[redSHARP]

fuck GM! it is dangerous and put our food sources at the hands of a few capitalist corporations. look up the movie "future of food". if GM is to be allowed, it needs to be monitored by the state.

[Severian]

GM crops can be used to increase the output of food. However, this does not mean that the extensive use of GM crops will enable us to feed the hungry, because the problem with food is not that we don't have enough, rather, hunger arises as a result of the way in which food is distributed, through the market system, which limits food to those that are able to pay for it.

I now think my earlier response to this didn't go far enough.

Even though inequality is the main cause of hunger, there are still good reasons for increasing food production, even under capitalism, including through GM crops when useful.

1. Many Third World countries do not, in fact, produce enough to feed their populations. They have to buy food from imperialist agribusiness. Increasing food production can be an important part of the fight against economic dependency.

Of course, the control of GM is a weapon of precisely those imperialist, especially U.S., agribusiness...but again, that's an argument for challenging that control of GM. As, for example, Cuba does, by conducting its own GM research.

2. Lowering production costs and increasing supply have the effect of lowering food costs. Just as higher production costs (including fuel prices) and a smaller food supply (thanks in part to biofuel subsidies) are currently making food prices skyrocket.

Precisely in a market system, higher food prices have a tremendously unequal effect. The world's poor go hungry.