M S Swaminathan, ‘The Father of Economic Ecology’ is on record as saying that GMOs shouldn’t be grown in or marketed to the developed world, where they aren’t necessary, but should be created for the developing world, to meet the food needs of large populations living in poverty and to allow such nations to develop a reliable food surplus that they can sell to the developed world.
The US Fish & Wildlife Service has been told by a Federal Court that it must stop planting genetically modified crops at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge on the west shore of the Delaware Bay.
A law protecting the dignity of plants? Laugh if you will. I’m down on my knees in respect and awe. At last the Western World is realizing the dire importance of taking other species into account.
Recently, the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to determine the meaning of dignity when it pertains to plants.
Lo and Behold, the team published a treatise on “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake.” The treatise established that vegetation has innate value and that it is morally wrong to partake in activities such as the “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.”
Over a decade ago, an amendment was added to the Swiss constitution in order to defend the dignity of all creatures — including vegetation — against unwanted repercussions of genetic engineering. The amendment was turned into law and is known as the Gene Technology Act. However the law itself didn’t say anything specific about plants, until recently, when the law was amended to include them.
The obvious question at hand: how does this new ruling affect the production of genetically modified organisms?
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