From ALAN PICKAVER and SUSAN MAYER
Iain Cubitt and Tina Barsby’s arguments in favour of biotechnology (Letters,
17 August) leave out many areas that could lead to major environmental and
economic disasters.
That there are very real risks from the release of genetically manipulated
organisms to the environment is widely accepted and a fact to which national
advisory committees, including the UK Government Advisory Committee on Releases
to the Environment, testify. Once released, these living organisms will
continue to have the potential to replicate and establish themselves in
the natural ecosystems. Retrieval of genetically manipulated organisms will
not be possible once they are in the environment.
Cubitt and Barsby point to insect-resistant crops as a particular benefit
of plant biotechnology. However, insects are already becoming resistant
to the first generation of engineered insect toxins (for example, Bacillus
thuringiensis) in plants.
The fact that millions of dollars are still being pumped into research
on pesticide-resistant crops shows that pesticides will continue to be predominant.
The lessons of DDT and its use have clearly not been learnt.
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The oft-quoted benefits in terms of increased food production for ‘countries
which are short of food . . .’ do not stand up to scrutiny and fail, as
the Green Revolution failed, to provide for many of the poor in less developed
countries. How will poor farmers afford seed produced by genetic engineering
and how will they tackle emerging insect resistance? The trend is for companies
to patent the very genetic resources that farmers have helped to develop
and conserve, while knowledge of traditional farming methods that are the
key to sustainable food production is being lost.
Greenpeace feels this technology has the potential to disturb the environment
on a very large scale. We will continue to bring these concerns to the public
and will strive to ensure environmental concerns come before purely commercial
ones.
Alan Pickaver, Susan Mayer Greenpeace, London
