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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16638
Location: York
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 Posted: Wed Nov 26, 08 10:03 am Post subject: Horizon: Jimmy's GM Food Fight |
 
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Horizon: Jimmy's GM Food Fight
It seemed to give a good all-round view of the issues surrounding GM. |
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Drewsephine
Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Posts: 653
Location: No longer in Scotland. Now new and improved in Plymouth
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 08 11:04 am Post subject: |
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Crikey that took a while.
Informative, interesting and certainly puts a good point across.
Worth a watch if you have an opinion on this subject |
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Cathryn
Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 13177
Location: Ceredigion
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 08 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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I found it irritating and it didn't answer any significant questions. The main one for nearly every element of it being WHY? Not why gm crops but why grow more cotton, why try to grow sterile virtually inedible and now disease ridden bananas, oh and so many other whys. |
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16638
Location: York
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 08 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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To be fair I think it was enough to tackle in one sitting for most people. The why was assumed as an increasing population, although towards the end he did focus on that injustice & how it is not the west that needs it but they are happy to profit from it. |
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hamster
Joined: 24 Apr 2007
Posts: 448
Location: Wokingham (Berks.), UK
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| Posted: Wed Nov 26, 08 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Cathryn wrote: |
| I found it irritating and it didn't answer any significant questions. The main one for nearly every element of it being WHY? Not why gm crops but why grow more cotton, why try to grow sterile virtually inedible and now disease ridden bananas, oh and so many other whys. |
Yes... Why do you assume your method of farming can't feed the world? Why are people hungry? And I've only watched the introduction.... |
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Cynicus
Joined: 27 Nov 2008
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 7:43 am Post subject: |
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Horizon has 'previous'for misleading viewers with industry constructed propaganda. presented as science. Rebuked by BBC Trust last year for its 2006 'Chernobyl - Nuclear nightmares' piece - shown at the crtitical time of uk government decision on future energy production. That consisted of unchallenged assertions and industry assumptions. Also, contributors industry connections were not given. http://www.llrc.org/rat/subrat/rat72.pdf
'Jimmy's gm porkies' is more of the same. The production format is classic biotech spin, probably from the 'not at all independent' John Innes Centre, long over-committed to gm and its 'partner' biotech financiers..
The 'Can gm feed the world?' chant is bogus, even Monsanto dropped it once the facts piled up. It is a matter of political will, sharing resources - eliminating poverty not ensuring its continuation, especially by corporate control of the food system through patents on seeds.
(See - Who owns nature? - http://www.etcgroup.org/en/materials/publications.html?pub_id=706 )
Following P.R. advice Horizon chose as presenter a warm, familiar trusted figure in the shape of free range pig farmer and tv personality Jimmy Doherty. The script he followed was pure biotech hype. Jimmy expresses a reservation - film moves straight to the industry response without qualifications or mention of serious contradictory farmer experiences or scientific evidence for each of these 'gm wonder stories'. Nary a mention of the major environmental, social and economic consequences suffered from gm cropping nor of the chicanery of gm approvals, so brilliant at ignoring evidence of toxicity. Jimmy's globetrotting somehow missed India's livestock gm poisonings and where peasant farmer suicides multiplied fourfold in the gm cotton regions due to increased cost and gm failures.
Jimmy's street promotion of gm oil cooked sausages - He recites to amazed shoppers "Gm could cut pesticide use and be good for the environment - Brilliant!" - another falsie. Reality shows gm traits for insect resistance and herb. tolerance are going awry as predicted - Causing tolerance and resistance making openings for other pests, apart from much unseen environmental damage.
Chemical usage is now well up, not down
Horizon and Jimmy delivered a propaganda coup for the agri-biotech industry. Jimmy will be smiling all the way to his gm piggy bank. |
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cab
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 30063
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 8:53 am Post subject: |
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I don't know what program you watched Cynicus, in the one I saw the guy concluded that he's unconvinced by the need for GM crops in the developed world but he's more of the view that certain crops in the developing world (like bananas) could benefit from GM technology.
A very rare example of a television program about GM technology not really, really sucking. |
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16638
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 9:22 am Post subject: |
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I think it's a classic example of you seeing what you want to see. The program was not extremely pro-biotech, in fact if anything I thought it gave a fair evaluation that, on balance, is more anti-GM than pro- (though unlike many programmes that have been made on the subject, the presenter didn't try telling you what he wants you to think & left the viewer to decide).
In his final PTC he summed up GM technology as not being there to 'feed the world' but instead to make westerners richer whilst it could have potential in other parts of the world where there (unfortunately) isn't sufficient funding to support it. He also highlighted the big difference between trials & commercial use of GM, and how we won't be able to prove it is a bad (or good) technology if we don't test it.
The thing that struck me most, which I hadn't really thought about much before, was that the pro- reasoning of it being better for the environment because of reduced pesticide use was rather mis-leading. Firstly, when pesticides were first introduced they were 'safe', it was only when the newer technology came along (which the pesticde companies could exploit) that they have started to admit that actually pesticides aren't safe.
Secondly, they were discussing how GM technology can create plants that are resistant to insect attack (ie the plant does the job of the pesticide), so how is that better for the environment? At least with a insecticide you can choose when or if to apply it or not. What happens out in the field when pest levels start dropping in the GM crop? Population shifts will increase the pest load on non-GM susceptible crops so they'll need more insecticide. Population reduction in the GM crops (assuming a high percentage of GM crops in the future) will mean a reduction in pest numbers, which means a reduction in the birds, small mammals & amphibians that eat the pests, and so on up the food chain. So, it turns out, although it has reduced the chemical use, it has not reduced the effects. Ecology still suffers. |
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bernie-woman
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7753
Location: shropshire
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 9:28 am Post subject: |
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A fairly good programme I thought - I like his style of presenting too - shame that in all this talk of having to feed the world no-one mentioned that if we cut the amount of food wasted in many countries the need for GM food decreases hugely and I would have liked more info on the allergic reactions that GM food has caused in mice that he briefly mentioned but all in all a good light introduction to many of the issues surrounding GM |
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Cynicus
Joined: 27 Nov 2008
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 9:57 am Post subject: |
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" he's unconvinced by the need for GM crops in the developed world ...but of the view that certain crops in the developing world (like bananas) could benefit from GM technology".
All that went before section by section, (90% of the prog. )performed the function of shifting the viewers mind to their "irrationality" in declining gm food. Each globetrotting segment was unchallenged biotech ambition, unqualified by extensive small farmer experience and quantified scientific findings as regards larger scale growing.
The African gm banana story is attended with much evidence of failure, not only in the prog's. given example of Uganda.
See - Uganda GM banana fails to defeat diseases (2008)
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=23948
GM bananas can wait (2006)
http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/editor-letters/gm-bananas-can-wait.html
The enthusiasm of some Amish for gm tobacco and corn is not a recommendation based on any certainty of safety, Propelling reasons in the case of biotech tobacco include - inducement by cash
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/smoking.html
The programme's never-mentioned Gene Giants aim is to overcome European and Japanese well reasoned objection to gm (recombinant dna) which remains a very hazardous technology
compared to other modern plant breeding methods.
It 's impossible to over estimate the duplicity of the biotech companies in their subversion of democracy through government policy and manipulation of public opinion. |
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cab
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 30063
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 10:06 am Post subject: |
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| Cynicus wrote: |
It 's impossible to over estimate the duplicity of the biotech companies in their subversion of democracy through government policy and manipulation of public opinion. |
May I point out that this statement rather brings the rest of your comments into question? You're coming at this from a very strong angle of being anti-GM; is it likely that anything but an anti-GM hatchet job on the telly prog. would have made you happy? |
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Cynicus
Joined: 27 Nov 2008
Posts: 5
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 10:54 am Post subject: |
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The 'inspiration' for this programme is the biotech lobby, as was the 'Nuclear nightmares' that of the nuclear industry propagandists. Horizon makers readily oblige and are not bothered by far down the line rebukes from BBC overseers.
It is possible to construct a programme that includes a true balance of evidence, but this most certainly wasn't it. It flows from the strategies of industry and their known current pr approaches which are appearing in other areas of problematic/dodgy products. |
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cab
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 30063
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 11:00 am Post subject: |
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| Cynicus wrote: |
The 'inspiration' for this programme is the biotech lobby, as was the 'Nuclear nightmares' that of the nuclear industry propagandists. Horizon makers readily oblige and are not bothered by far down the line rebukes from BBC overseers.
It is possible to construct a programme that includes a true balance of evidence, but this most certainly wasn't it. It flows from the strategies of industry and their known current pr approaches which are appearing in other areas of problematic/dodgy products. |
Sorry, I didn't see the program in such a light. At all. |
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Rob R
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 16638
Location: York
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 08 11:08 am Post subject: |
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Me neither. |
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Cynicus
Joined: 27 Nov 2008
Posts: 5
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