permaculture

[stephan leimroth <slimerote@yahoo.com>]

hello, all.

my mother recently sent me this article from some BBC
online service (sorry, i don't know the specific
address):



>Scientist raises organic concerns 
GM foods have provoked a widespread debate

A leading Scottish scientist has warned that organic
farming poses considerable risks to human health. 
Professor John Hillman, director of the world-renowned
Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), also said the
debate on GM food had been "obscured" by unhelpful
language. 
His comments are contained in the SCRI's annual report
released on Tuesday. 
Its Director's Report is regarded as one of the most
comprehensive yearly reviews of global and UK trends
influencing agricultural, biological and
environmentalsciences. 
Professor Hillman writes that organic farming poses   
    
considerable risks to human health, as well as the    
    
heavily-publicised potential benefits. 
"Organic farming raises risks of faecal contamination
not
only of food but also of waterways, food poisoning,
high
levels of natural toxins and allergens, contamination
by
copper and sulphur-containing fungicides, production
of
diseased food, low productivity, and creation of
reservoirs
of pests and diseases," he says. 
His report calls for "unhelpful and unjustified
language"
to be ditched and for lessons to be learned from the
wholeGMfood debate. 
Debate 'obscured' "Cars, cigarettes, stepladders and
playing sports are
dangerous - eating GM food is not. 
"Deliberately pejorative language is obscuring the
debate
and encouraging people to pre-judge the issues before 
    
they have heard all the facts. 
"Obvious lessons to be drawn from the GM debate
include    
the requirement for wide consultation with the support
of
authoritative literature, effective and non-pejorative
food labelling and testing of all foodstuffs, research
    
to address gaps in current knowledge and absolute  
transparency and open access provided to the public
andpoliticians." 
Professor Hillman continues: "In Third World countries
more
than 70% of income is spent on food, and production   
    
perturbations caused by pests, diseases, weeds and bad

weather lead to starvation and even suicides.
'Profound requirement' 
"There is a profound requirement for improving
agricultural
productivity and efficiency, and biotechnological
approaches, including GM crops, are real options." 
The Scottish Crop Research Institute, based at
Invergowrie,
is a major international centre for research into     
   
agricultural, horticultural and industrial crops. 
Last week, a UN conference in Montreal agreed on rules
governing the trade in genetically-modified food
products. 
The Biodiversity Protocol states that shipments of GM 
    
commodities should bear labels saying they "may
contain"
genetically-modified organisms and are not intended
for
intentional introduction into the environment. 
In Scotland, much of the debate has revolved around
the
Aberdeen scientist Dr Arpad Puztai, who said GM foods
maybe
dangerous to human health.  His experiments in which
he fed
genetically-modified potatoes to rats were later
discredited. 
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