Dale,
I am a capitalist, a great believer in a fair return on invested capital and
in the eventual tiumph of market forces if they are allowed to operate
without monopolistic interference. Ultimately, the collective acts of
individual consumers are what determines where, how and why our various food
crops are produced. It is the consumer who will decide what food to buy and
why. I have no problem with traditional plant breeding methods and I am not
about to dictate to other farmers how they should make decisions about
cropping practices. But, I am also a died-in-the-wool organic farmer who
sincerely believes that we can feed ourselves and all our fellow humans
using organic, or at least sustainable, agricultural practices, without
messing up the natural systems whose complexities and interactions we know
so very little about.
What alarms me are the values that I perceive as underlying the current
gene-mania. To me these values smack of simple greed, and the result is
economic imperialism on a global scale fueled by a monomaniacal drive for
control and centralization, carried out by huge transnational entities which
seem to have no respect or appreciation for the innate harmony, order and
sanctity of life. That may sound a bit harsh, but that is how I see it. The
future is created by our choices.
Jeff Gold
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