Farming faces GM time-bomb
After a recent EU decision the floodgates are now open for the import of GM oilseed rape for feed and we are facing a nightmare.
Let’s have a look at some scenarios for GM oilseed rape in Ireland.
It is, according to Japanese experience, impossible to unload and transport the rape seed without spillage. As a result volunteer plants are growing now in Japanese harbours and beyond and cannot be controlled by spray.
Most brassicas, which are closely related to oilseed rape, are very tough survivors, being able to germinate after lying dormant, in reported cases, for decades.
Just imagine that a lorry drives from an Irish port across the country spilling seeds all along the way. Most of those will germinate by the roadside and nobody will notice anything unusual. They will then cross-pollinate uncontrollably with other brassicas, be it cabbage, broccoli, oilseed rape or charlock.
This is the case on a government research station in Dorset, England, where modified genes from crops in a GM trial transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant superweed.
Any product of such an uncontrollable cross-fertilisation will contain the glyphosate-resistant genes, which means the vegetable grower intending to grow a break crop will be unable to kill these plants. So they will thrive and shed even more seeds, and so on.
A single oilseed rape plant is capable of producing 14,500 seeds. For a farmer contemplating the cultivation of oilseed rape, the situation is quite similar: if her or his oilseed rape contains a certain percentage of GM seeds, the oil is not suitable for human consumption, according to current legislation.
Oilseed rape growers, be warned: Monsanto and Co could sue you because you’re illegally cultivating patented GM plants; Monsanto has done this in the US and Canada.
Apart from this, persistent GM plants will come up and flourish in any crop. Irish fields will be infested with GM brassicas, and no way to control them. Organic vegetable growers will be out of business because organic means zero percent GM.
GM crops do nothing for this green and clean island, which Bórd Bia is spending a fortune promoting as the ‘food island.’ If we do not stop the beginnings of GM pollution, our markets will be closed before we even know it.
GM is not feeding the hungry of this world; it is not, in the long term, reducing the amounts of pesticides, and it is not conclusively proven that is has no negative effects on human health.
There are so many unanswered questions about GM crops that I feel it is absolutely irresponsible to create an irreversible situation solely because an industry is trying to make money for its shareholders.
Richard Auler
Ballybrado
Cahir
Co Tipperary
