By Cindy
National Corn Growers Association
A leading environmental activist and critic of genetically modified food recently announced the error of his ways and his conversion to being a supporter of biotech crops.
“I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment,” said author and activist Mark Lynas during an address last month to the Oxford Farming Conference.
Lynas explained his change of heart towards GM by saying, “I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”
In his one hour address to the conference, Lynas made a strong appeal to both the environmental community and governments to see the importance of safe biotech crops in feeding a growing population, invoking the sacred name of Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution.
Before Borlaug died in 2009 he spent many years campaigning against those who for political and ideological reasons oppose modern innovation in agriculture. To quote: “If the naysayers do manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they might actually precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting for nearly 40 years.”
And, thanks to supposedly environmental campaigns spread from affluent countries, we are perilously close to this position now. Biotechnology has not been stopped, but it has been made prohibitively expensive to all but the very biggest corporations.
Worth reading, watching and quoting.
07 Mark Lynas from Oxford Farming Conference on Vimeo.
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