I work in this industry and I know we could reduce carbon emissions dramatically if we could grow vegetables that could walk to the processing plants on their own. We are getting close so far we have produced a carrot that knows when it’s ripe but insists on heading for airport .

Funny that the government refused to capitalise the banks a few days ago maintaining it had no mandate to do so, while it seems to have it when making a decision about food that affects every single citizen.

@Jeffrey Ryan … food has NOT been genetically modified for millions of years. It’s been SELECTIVELY BRED and HYBRIDIZED. That is NOT manipulating genetics by inserting foreign, unrelated matter into the DNA. These scientists are inserting the DNA of viruses, bacteria, fish genes into tomatoes, pesticides into corn and so forth. There is absolutely NO long term testing done on any of these things to see how these UNNATURAL combinations affect human health. We DO know that GMO fed livestock are showing deformities, illness and disease, spontaneous abortions of their fetuses and sterility in subsequent generations.

You want to eat FRANKENFOOD… be my guest but count me out. The whole… “we don’t have enough food to feed the world” is an outright LIE. There is MORE than enough food to feed everyone. Politics, greed and the need to control are keeping food from the people who need it. GMOs DO NOT make food MORE nutritious, it makes it LESS nutritious. It increases the use of herbicides, it destroys the soil, destroys biodiversity, increases disease among plants and wildlife and ENSLAVES farmers to SERF status. There is NO WAY to contain GMO crops and they contaminate conventional and organic crops forcing farmers to loose their entire livelihoods when they are SUED by behemoth corporations like MONSATAN and SYGENTA for patent infringement or for saving their own seeds.

Seriously… you people need to wake the hell up and quit listening to industry propaganda. GMOS are NOT safe, do NOT increase yields and do NOT reduce the use of pesticides. Great example…. all the cotton farmers in India who were forced to commit suicide after getting trapped in Monsanto’s snare and they lost EVERYTHING. Or maybe you should look up the story of Percy Schmieser , the Canola farmer from Canada whose crops were contaminated by GMOs and spent many years and thousands and thousands of dollars fighting Monsanto who sued HIM for THEIR seed contaminating HIS crops !! I suggest ALL of you watch this documentary. And while you’re at it… watch FOOD, Inc as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzELDt3d2I

I agree completely with Michael, there is enough food in the world, the fact is we waste most of it.
Regarding GM food, when was the last time you heard a positive news story related to Monsanto? Exactly.

Godfrey

The world is producing enough food. The problem is greed/poverty rather than scarcity. This can only be made worse by a small number of seed corporations controlling world supplies of seeds – their GM seeds.

Are you saying the Dutch achieve there outputs through genetic modification? Doubt it.

@Jeffrey Ryan “without meaning to cause you offense, I suspect that you are one of the Green agenda ‘Gene Poolers’ (forgive the pun) and that there would be no chance whatsoever of getting you to see from a different viewpoint.”
I think, Jeffrey, you are playing the woman there and not the ball. More science and logic, please; and less emotion. O.K?

The question is poorly chosen.

Someone could answer ‘Yes’ meaning they’d avoid a GM food (as Godfrey points out all food is GM but I’ll use the current label) or ‘Yes’ meaning they’d chose a GM food, because of greater shelf life or improved nutritional content etc..

Yerra, food has been genetically modified for millennia due to the process of natural selection. Why on earth does the addition of a few extra strings of DNA make any difference except for the better. As for our ‘reputation for producing good food’: why not produce high quality good GM food. The world cannot produce enough food at present to feed the rapidly expanding population. GM is the only way to go. Ireland is a prime culprit when it comes to inefficient use of the land.

I want to resubmit a previous comment that I made on the subject of ‘Sons of the soil versus intellectuals’.

Sons of the soil have failed miserably to utilize the soil effectively and economically. Our best natural resource has been disgracefully managed. Every time you fly over Holland, a country the size of Munster, you can see acre after acre of cultivation and intensive cattle rearing to make them one of the world’s leading food providers. A Dutchman said to me once: “if we had Ireland we could feed the world, and if you had Holland you’d sink it”.

Anyone saying no read “The World is Not for Sale” and it will definitely change your opinion.

The last time I ate quality Irish food as I know it, I was in Poland. When was the last time an onion made you cry?

I have no problem in eating GM food. Where I have a problem is in allowing the seed companies to control the GM seed banks. As I understand it farmers will not be able to harvest seeds for the next season’s planting. I think the seeds are sterile for growing purposes.
And another thing – the idea that this is the answer to World Hunger is wrong; the growing populations of the Third World will just get bigger and bigger on GM foods and will eventually crash with even greater consequenses. If the argument is about feeding the World’s poor, we could do it now without GM, if there was the will.
So there!

The pro-gm and anti-gm arguments are not clear cut. GM will play a role alongside a variety of plant improvement techniques both ‘conventional’ and GM.
Anyone who says that GM will cure world hunger is over-exaggerating but likewise, those who reject the technology outright are also exaggerating or (in some cases) misrepresenting the science.
It is important to reflect that some of those who promote a GM-Free policy do so for economic reasons, in order to promote organic or non-gm food, which itself is a product to be marketed, just like any other. It may make sense then, for them to create fear and suspicion around this “new” technology.

I am with Godfrey Ryan on this one…..I enjoyed this letter also in todays Examiner
http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/letters/we-need-to-examine-importance-of-gm-food-146013.html

Well Sharon, obviously you have no science education.