So the Royal Society – one of the most respected and oldest scientific research institutions in Britain – today says GM food can feed the world and has appealed to the Government for a £2 billion government injection into the industry.
Wouldn’t a better way to feed the world be to use the billions of kilos of food burned and destroyed every year in the Europe as part of Europe’s ridiculous Common Agricultural Policy?
Well, yes it would but it wouldn’t make huge agribusiness companies billions of pounds would it? Funny that the Royal Society is funded directly by the British government that’s in bed with the very same GM companies that would benefit from the 2 billion subsidy the Royal Society is proposing.
Yet another example of where the British government are completely ignoring the majority of public who don’t want GM good on their supermarket shelves:
In contrast, the British government is comparably more open to the concept of GM foods and related technology than the UK public. However, without positive public perception and support of these products, they are not likely to do well in local areas.
Hey Nick,
How’s things? I am now in my new job..really good but very busy. Glad to be finally working in development though. In terms of food security, I am not sure giving out the EU food mountains to Sub-Saharan Africa for example would solve the problem and it would not be sustainable. It would keep the status quo and support the continued power imbalance between the North and the South.
Hi Ed, not bad thanks. Glad the job is going well.
I’m not suggesting the EU gives the food away. What they should do is trade the food instead of stockpiling it to protect the European farming industry. In doing so, it would surely benefit Africa and other poor regions by eliminating economic protectionist policies like CAP that they can’t possibly compete with.
“Support to farmers in OECD countries totals 280 billion USD annually. By contrast, official development assistance amounted to 80 billion USD in 2004. OECD analysts estimate that cutting agricultural tariffs and subsidies by 50% would add an extra 26 billion USD to annual world income, equivalent to just over four dollars a year for every person on the globe.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy#Criticism_of_the_CAP
Ah, I get ya. The other problem is huge amounts of protectionism within Africa for example. But you are right we definitely need fair trade….level playing field etc. The joys of development! So very complicated.
Do you mean that African farmers are actually hurting Western agricultural industry through their own import tariffs, protectionism etc?
No hurting each other within the African trading zone.