After an afternoon at the allotment digging weeds out of the soft fruits bed, I came home and threw myself in the bath with my autumn copy of Garden Organic magazine. Someone had written a letter asking about non-organic manure. 6 months composting may well make it acceptable for use in organic gardening; however, it must be GM-free manure to start with.
Of course, if the animal had been fed with GM feed, the fibres and discarded material even through the guts of the animal may still have GM DNA in it. I had not thought of that. Yet GM-free is on top of my agenda. And I know that animal feed can be GM in Europe. Still, somehow I had not associated horses fed without the use of chemicals in the supply chain with the possibility of GM in the feed.
Big depression followed. I had already felt a bit defeated the other day reading some very interesting info on the website of the Scientists for Global Responsibility. It's everywhere: it's very difficult to keep track of all the right things to do, to source things that are ethical, sustainable, organic, especially when it's not the mainstream ones. I have a lot of time for those that are consistently inquisitive, attentive and selective. But I can also see why the average Joe Bloggs does not care. It's so complicated.
And there are so many powerful interestes pushing for GM, lobbying and sneaking it in as widely as possible, that one wonders whether we stand any chance. So little concern for the possible unintended and unexpected consequences of introducing something in the environment that by its own nature is bound to spread and cannot be controlled. I was really struck, studying my horticulture books, by how often they would point out we do not know exactly how a plants carries out its functions, have I mentioned that already? And consequently by how arrogant it is of man to want to change plants when one does not even quite understand how they work: the product of million years of evolution...
... anyway, it's quite interesting that the Economist debate, which was making the case for biotech and sustainable agriculture being complementary, started out with 79% in favour and is now down to 38%. Avaaz petition on banning GM in Europe has exceeded the minimum 1 million signatures. There's a lot of people on the anti-GM side, will it matter anyway? Does GM matter? It's only one of the irresponsible things we are doing to the environment...
My brother told me something I found very wise. He believes that Earth will bounce back from anything we throw at her, and regain a balance. The only ones that might lose out of our Earth's regaining a balance are the human race, as the new balance might not be suitable for human life: we are not needed for the Earth's survival. That's because it's not OUR Earth. Puts things in perspective, raises a lot of questions.
Amazing how even something like compost can be infected with engineered DNA from something like the grain that the horse ate... I also really benefit from reminding myself of the same thing your brother said. No matter what harm we humans are able to do to the earth, it is even more foolish and ethnocentric to believe that we have the ability to snuff out life on this planet. No matter how hard we try (and it does seem like we're trying pretty hard these days), this planet would be able to shake off the ill effects of man in a heartbeat. Life will persist even if we don't. We could, though, change our course and decide to work with the planet instead of against it...
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