GMO Seeds as a Weapon of War?

Timothy Birdnow

I've been warning against the supremacy of genetically modified seeds for a long time. One of the disturbing aspects of these is the suicide gene; you generally cannot reproduce the plants once you have grown them. This means farmers have to go back to the companies that produce the seeds every year, thus making them dependent. But what happens if a real emergency occurs and the seeds are not available?

Government could force a famine on us if they chose; it is one of the aces up their sleeve if there should be a second revolution.

This takes this argument further, claiming the U.S. invented this biotech as a weapon of war.

From the article:

GM seed is neither more productive nor healthier than traditional heritage crops, and is far more expensive and destructive, but it presents almost irresistible military advantages against any nation that becomes dependent on this source of food grains. One is that the US can use it as a political weapon, refusing to supply seed to a disfavored nation, perhaps causing widespread famine and dislocation. The other is more sinister, in that many groups have experimented with gene-splicing technology, inserting unrelated DNA into various seeds.

Perhaps, perhaps not. This may be becoming paranoid. BUT the end result is the same; someone can starve us all if they stop selling these sterile plants.

I think the recombinant DNA revolution is a terrible danger. We've been mixing human DNA with animal, for instance, and THAT is terrifying to me because it opens the possibility of diseases jumping species. Every species on Earth has certain microbial predators unique to themselves. But if we mix up the DNA we incentivize these micro-organisms to branch out. How long before we create something we really, really don't want?

Author Richard Preston (the man who wrote The Hot Zone) penned a novel based on his research over the years. Called The Cobra Event it was the story of a bio-terrorist creating a deadly human pathogen from a butterfly disease. He was trying, of course, but who is to say such a disease would not jump naturally into the human genome from all this genetic mix and match?

And certainly sterile seeds are cause for concern if a disaster should strike. What are we going to feed people if there is an EMP event? Farms already are going to be unable to produce much, but at least with "heirloom" seeds a farmer may get some semblance of a crop in the next year. But if he can't get his plants to go to seed he won't have anything to plant.

We're playing some dangerous games these days. And yet so many young people worry about the chimera of Global Warming.

BTW, I have no worries about the health dangers of GMO food insofar as so many fear it. That isn't the problem. The problem is in some ways more frightening.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 12:01 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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