| Pass the Frankenfood |
30 June 2003
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US, Europe Both Wrong on Genetically Modified Food
Genetically modified food is either the greatest invention in agriculture since agriculture or an evil that will destroy mankind. It depends on whether one is speaking with an American trade representative or a Eurocrat defending the EU's farm policy. Both are wrong, and both have an agenda that ought to be a source of shame.
The American administration says that genetically modified food is simply the same thing farmers have been doing forever by cross-breeding plants, merely more scientific and effective. That much is true. What the White House doesn't say is that the providers of GM seeds will have patents on certain gene-splices, and anyone who hasn't paid the license fee will be sued. Pity about Farmer Smith's pollen (licensed) that got into Farmer Brown's field (unlicensed).
Meanwhile, the Eurocrats are convinced that this Frankenfood will have long-term health effects (probably not) and that at very least, it should be labeled as GM for consumer benefit (fair enough, despite American protest). However, it also keeps low-cost producers from exporting to Europe, thereby propping up the grossly inefficient and politically powerful farmers in France and Italy at the expense of the countries Europe claims need development help.
The solution is clear enough: label all GM products as such, forbid patents that last longer than a single growing season, and let free trade determine the result. Somehow, that isn't in the cards.