“When I’m visiting agricultural research institutes in Africa and India,
I find the labs for biological control half empty and with broken windows. But the biotechlabs will be all new, with new equipment and stuffed with staff. Biocontrol projects, as we do it, are not so spectacular, not so sexy. Here I see a big problem.”
Hans Herren, Director of the ICIPE , Kenya,
winner of the World Food prize 1995
I find the labs for biological control half empty and with broken windows. But the biotechlabs will be all new, with new equipment and stuffed with staff. Biocontrol projects, as we do it, are not so spectacular, not so sexy. Here I see a big problem.”
Hans Herren, Director of the ICIPE , Kenya,
winner of the World Food prize 1995
IFOAM GMO Brochure -The facts and the fiction, from bees and carrots 4 stories, your questions our answers
Organic farming and genetic engineering are two contradictory world views, two different philosophies, the two main options for the future. The basic principles of organic farming are holistic. Rather than looking at isolated parts, the whole farm as a living entity is the focus. It is seen as a whole, enmeshed in the intrinsic web of life and part of the interactions and relationships between all living beings. Organic farming seeks to maintain an overall balance, by enhancing biodiversity (for example, flowering plants are sown on the borders of fields to attract beneficial insects into the crops). Organic pesticides are only used in emergencies cases, as supplementary measures. Genetic engineering, on the contrary, isolates and reduces complex problems to single issues and then tries to find a technical solution. The very basis of genetic engineering depends on the search for single-factor solutions, whereas all major problems of the environment and agriculture are multifactoral. An example: Bt-maize expresses a toxin that kills the maize pest stemborer. But what if other, often beneficial, insects (such as lacewings, the monarch- or the black swallowtail-butterfly) are harmed as well? What consequences follow if the toxin also influences the soil-food-web or if the
stemborer acquires a resistance to the Bttoxin?
Go to the GMO vs. Organic page
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