GMW: Geneticist warns and challenges students

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GMW: Geneticist warns and challenges students

" GM WATCH " <info

Sun, 30 Oct 2005 10:49:48 GMT

 

 

 

 

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Geneticist warns and challenges students

By TIMOTHY LE RICHE

EDMONTON SUN (Canada), October 28 2005

http://edmsun.canoe.ca/Business/News/2005/10/28/1282436-sun.html

 

Animal geneticist John Hodges had a warning for University of Alberta

agriculture students yesterday: incorporate ethical standards into

practice or risk a bleak future.

 

Hodges, who has been a researcher in Canada and has worked for the

United Nations, warned that biotechnology, combined with capitalistic

economics, are reshaping crops and livestock in ways that must inevitably

affect people.

 

Already, 45% of chicken breeds are at risk of extinction, as

intensification of production zeroes in on the cheapest inputs for the

highest

outputs.

 

As well, 43% of horse breeds, 23% of pig breeds, and 23% of cattle

breeds are all at risk, said Hodges. The result is a serious loss of

biodiversity. " This intensification of production is leading us into

crisis, "

Hodges warned.

 

He offered students the challenge of the future.

 

" You're going to have to do some fresh thinking. Society is searching

for its new moral and spiritual values. "

 

High-production agriculture is already contributing to obesity and

pollution. In the future, sustainability will become a vital issue, he

suggested.

 

Large corporations are racing to patent developments like gene

manipulations, and much of the change is being implemented without " due

process " - that is, without full public debate and consensus, Hodges

bemoaned.

Small communities across the Canadian prairies are dying out as

large-scale corporate farming takes over markets, he added.

 

As science progresses, the future raises the spectre of poultry barns

where the birds are grown with beaks and legs removed because they're

useless bits. Or animals with adjusted skins and metabolism to enable

them to grow in cold weather, thus eliminating facility heating costs. Or

animals without gender. Hodges warned research is already poking into

areas that raise disturbing questions about effects on man.

 

So the biggest question is, where do we draw the line?

 

" It's an ethical dilemma, and it's growing, " said Hodges.

 

And he added more foreboding. " The BSE (mad cow) situation is not

finished by any means, and more problems are arising, " said Hodges.

 

 

 

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