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The War on Bugs

By Will Allen

Summarized with permission of Chelsea Green.
All rights reserved.

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The Rise of the Supercrops

The chemical discoveries and research breakthroughs of the last two hundred years had all run their course by the late 1970s. Chemical-corporation propagandists used the increasing regulatory decisions against chemical poisons as opportunities to promote genetically modified crops and animals. Early propaganda emphasized the altruistic and economic potential of genetic engineering. Some of the potential benefits that were touted for these genetically modified organisms (GMOs) included:

A significantly diminished need for farm chemicals
A reduction in the criticism and constant oversight from environmentalists, health experts, and government regulators
More profit for farmers
Increased agricultural production
The ability to feed the world's rapidly expanding population
The opening up of new markets

The chemical corporations that invested heavily in GMOs needed to make promises to large-scale farmers to keep their place in the market. Somehow, the press got ahead of the reality, and stories about genetic manipulation successes appeared before there were any real successes or actual products. Consequently,

There was no time for public debate
There was no vote as to whether or not such taxpayer-funded research was a good idea
There was a lack of widespread public understanding of how the current transgenic crossing of species differed significantly from the breeding experiments based on "classical" Mendelian genetics

In the traditional method of genetic improvement, conducted for ten thousand years by Native American, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Hindu, and Japanese farmers, as well as by more modern breeders, both closely and distantly related plants and animals are bred to produce more desirable traits. In transgenic or genetically manipulated (GM) breeding, genes are taken from unrelated species of plants or animals and literally "shot" into the genes of the target organism. However, instead of explaining this difference, the chemical corporations and their advertising agencies created ad campaigns that announced every achievement and denied any failures. These propaganda campaigns also promised that farmers would be the main beneficiaries of this new technology. In the late 1980s the GMO revolution kicked into high gear, with little or no regulation or even government oversight. Corporate researchers have since:

Cloned sheep, monkeys, pigs, and dogs
Created monster salmon and inserted flounder genes into tomatoes to ward off frost
Completed a sheep-goat cross called the "geep"
Created artificial-growth hormones for milk cows
Increased the density of pulpwood trees
Merged pharmaceutical production and agriculture to create "pharming"
Cloned pigs to grow replacement organs for human transplants

Each of these new techniques got patented with hardly any questioning. As a result, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against the chemical/seed corporations by foreign governments for filing illegal patents on their native crops and by farmers who claim that they got hurt financially when the gene giants' products failed.

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The War on Bugs

The Rise of the Supercrops

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