Farmers were always the easiest audience I had in meetings on GM crops. At the other end, housewives… They always paid a lot of attention, but a common, typical final statement was: ‘I didn't know about that, but… I won't eat them…’ Thus, the title of this still (at time of writing) unpublished book makes a lot of sense. To me this book is an essay; I feel its subtitle should start with ‘an essay on next…’ or ‘facts about’ to make it more attractive for non-scientific or technical people.
The text is written in a rather colloquial style, starting with general facts about food and its interaction with humans; on the way it smashes myths like ‘chemical-free’ or toxic foods, as well as, later on, falsehoods raised by ecofundamentalists against some leading companies in chemistry, plant breeding and, of course, biotechnology. Genetic transformation is introduced as a logical and consequential way to expand and improve plant breeding purposes and traditional techniques, and their first achievements and advantages are displayed well.
The tension between GMOs v. ecofundamentalists and ‘organic farming’ in general, particularly the futility of the biodynamic ‘religious’ ‘anthroposophical’ ideas of Rudolf Steiner, builds from the beginning of the book towards a final crescendo. Several cases of violent actions and extremely aggressive propaganda against GMO producers, farmers and even consumers are described and their supposedly underlying arguments refuted; for example, suicides in India, monarch butterflies in North America, golden rice in Asia and ‘potential’ allergies everywhere (in spite of the fact that the pollen of important crops such as many cereals, olive trees, etc., is ‘actually’ allergenic and these crops are even ‘ecologically’ cultivated…).
Concerning regulations on GM crops, I would have preferred some more comments on the subject, because a non-European reader could draw the conclusion that the EU system is simply not very efficient, when in fact is constituted by a set of continuous and complex eco-political barriers almost impossible to overcome, not to mention their absurdities. For example, in order to guarantee food for European livestock, GM soybean and maize are legally imported in huge amounts but forbidden for sowing in the EU. Or last summer's decision by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 25th July that everything obtained by genetic engineering tools (i.e. biochemistry…), even gene editing tools that leave no trace, will fall under GM regulations…
A book has its limits, but how interesting it would have been to include a few words about the profound ignorance of the common citizen concerning basic biological facts (‘transgenic tomatoes’ do have genes, ‘normal ones’ do not…).
This book is easy reading and highly commendable, providing very useful information in a simple style; ‘greenish’ people should read it! I also liked the short biographies, showing that scientists are real human beings, neither Frankenstein creators nor poison makers but looking for a way to make life better globally.
