GM foods and restaurants

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR – SATURDAY’S AGE PAGE 8 – TOP CHEFS COOK ..

I am concerned at the emotive, hate mongering and blatant grab for differential advertising that two Melbourne Chefs exhibited when they were quoted as saying in relation to a campaign for not serving GM foods, “We want to .. separate ourselves from the establishments that don’t care” and the other urging a boycott by saying, “If people close their restaurants because there are no customers”. One would hope that their managers and/or shareholders agree with them because these are strong sentiments that could backfire onto the business.
Pardon me, but this comes across as two blokes with all the rights in the world to say how they feel about GM and to do what they like in their own establishments but to impose their opinion onto others, by engendering hate and boycotts based on rather spurious information, is bad form. It’s amazing how certain groups resort to low end hate campaigns to get their message across when the world has moved on. The chef’s in question are made to look like somewhat silly when you read the whole article as well as remember that apparently twenty five Nobel Prize winners and about 3400 scientists have expressed support for GM crops as a safe way to improve both agriculture and the environment. [5 second search unveiled this information]
Personally, I would rather use product which has been developed to withstand insects without destructive and poisonous chemicals and as long as we support the so-called human disease of unlimited population growth we need ‘tough’ food which can be grown in what have been traditionally non-food growing areas. I wonder if our Chefs support continuing hunger in third world countries? I would think a far bigger problem concerns GM development companies owning the seeds by creating sterile plants and forcing farmers to buy a new lot each year.
We have been genetically modifying food and products and dare I say people for umpteen years by selective breeding – cognisant of all the implications regarding both moral and commercial choice. Selective breeding of sheep, cows, goats, roses, cotton and thousands of others has helped the normal process of survival of the strongest. How many future mothers going through IVF would want to choose the best genes they can from the available pool? Answer – all of them!
Apparently we now have the capacity to speed up the process of natural selection and gene strengthening through manipulation at the beginning rather than waiting a few decades for a similar effect. The article itself is quite clear in conveying support for GM crops worldwide yet we still have this by-line grabbing campaign by Greenpeace and two Chefs seemingly determined to create hate and business advantage for themselves.
As I said, bad form.