One small step for GM...

I'm back!

Sorry for the hiatus, folks, and thanks for staying with this blog. Now that vacation and training (and the resultant milieu of work) appear in my rearview mirror, I plan to post here at least weekly. Here we go!

Thanks to the first non-Key person to post a comment on this blog. Excellent thought to balance my admittedly lopsided "dissertation". Nothing like the real world to inject some reason into the discussion. I will post a reply comment as soon as I am finished here.

The news: http://www.sindhtoday.net/world/17299.htm

Here we go!

It appears that some farmers in South Africa have concluded that the economic benefit of GM potatoes (reduced damage from insects during storage) is greater that the marketing and customer acceptance challenges. They will grow GM potatoes starting this season. We look on with interest.

As I mentioned in that previous post, consumer concerns about GM potatoes do not appear to be based on fact, but rather fear of the unknown. Partially, at least, it includes the factor that they do not trust corporations to act responsibly regarding food safety. Fair concern, and one that needs to be disproven by those same corporations. I expect that any product of the University of Michigan has fully gone through the paces of food safety, that they would not release a potato variety that has not already been tested on both animals and humans over some period of time. The industry must not experiment on consumers.

But (as I mentioned before) GM potatoes appear to be a potentially significant contributor to solving the hunger problem worldwide. The regions where hunger prevails also appear to be where potato production and storage is most challenging. GM potatoes may resolve those issues, bringing a highly nutritious food to the locales that need it most.

And, if GM "works" in South Africa, why not elsewhere? Perhaps eventually, consumer fears will be allayed, and GM potatoes will become more prevalent.

We will see....

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