http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... isers-food

The sheer fact that Patterson's so supportive is scary, and the whole pesticide and resistance issues are a bit curious to say the least. That said, when we're endorsing gene-splicing and treatment in the human body...

The problem is that the scientists are in the pay of the GMO industry hardly impartial.

The problem is the GM agriculture industry has is not primarily legislation, it's perception. If they put two similar products in the shops and one is marked as being a GM product and one isn't, the latter will sell in multiplea of the former. There's no point growing GM crops if nobody will buy the products made from them.

So, essentially, the only way they're going to get GM crop sales to grow in the EU is either by directly lying about the contents of products (which is of course illegal in itself) or by the sin of omission, by putting them in products like fast food where you don't get a list of what the ingredients are, and hoping that nobody ever asks.

Neither is the way a reputable company should act.

or the antigmo groups they are of course totally impartial and just white knights

The vast majority of our livestock, cereals and vegetables have already been extensively genetically modified. And we didn't do it one gene group at a time either...

I could start cross-breeding cereals today using traditional techniques and I could plant it where I want and sell the produce. I would have had absolutely no control over which genes were modified and the new grain could do absolutely anything.

However, if I genetically modify a gene that only affects fungal resistance and I do it in a laboratory, suddenly it's dangerous? Bollocks.

Pass the law to allow them into general circulation, grow up and get on with it.

I've no objection to GM crops as long as they're not designed to (how to describe this) be infertile. ie There was talking of making them so farmers would have to buy new seeds every year rather than being able to collect them from the plants.

My problem is more companies like Monsanto going around and making it illegal to use traditional, natural seeds, because they have the patent on them and you have to buy their seeds, which have specifically had their reproduction DNA removed.

Resistance to fungus is one thing, but what some of the GM backers do leaves a bad taste in the mouth and not just from the taste of their crops.

+1 ...

In which case you legislate to make that illegal.

That's an anti-competition matter, not a bio-safety matter

That didn't work very well in the Americas and they put a lot of money behind their campaigns, making it difficult to get such legislation through, especially in developing lands.

There is also growing backlashes against GMO in India and Brazil.