Ontario Farmer | September 28, 1999
Hank J. Koskamp of Ripley writes that after reading several articles in the September 14, 1999 edition reporting on the Ontario Corn Producers Association annual meeting with their, as well as, Ross Daily and AG-Cares"'unanimous" support of GMO hybrids and the biotechnology promoted by multinationals, the author is wondering whether these people are in the employ of these corporations forcing their technology-tied-to-sales on the farmer.
Especially disturbing is their disdain for the Council of Canadians, and OXFAM - two organizations that, the author says, have a lot of support financially, and are respected by a majority of consumers. The author says that he, personally, has worked several years in Africa for OXFAM and is a member of the Council of Canadians.
As an agriculturalist with several non-government organizations in Africa, he says he saw the disastrous effects of the 'Green Revolution' in the 70's and 80's, where multinationals promoted hybrids and, commercial fertilizers at the expense of discarding traditional crops. The hybrids failed to mature due to droughts, insects, diseases, weed pressure,and fertilizer disappeared when subsidies were removed after only a few years.
High-interest loans were given to farmer cooperatives to import tractors to replace ox teams, which for lack of fuel and parts are now scrap graveyards.
Fortunately, the farmers continued to grow some of their
traditional crop - which are drought, insect, and disease-tolerant, though lower yielding - and maintained a seed bank. Most of the continent survives on these traditional crops today, without fertilizer, herbicides, and little precipitation.
The new "biotechnology" will only aggravate the present day politics of food distribution in Third World countries, The ambitions of the very few multinationals worldwide is to take control of the supply of seed with terminator genes that will reduce a fanner's independence and make him a contract labourer of their food chain.
Fortunately, there are seed growers, here in Canada, and in the third world who will continue to think independently, preserve traditional seed banks, and produce high-yielding varieties without risking the ecosystem.
Perhaps we are being conned by so-called "spokesmen of the family farmer" who apparently have a totally different agenda.
