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Charles targets GM crop giants in fiercest attack yet
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Independent (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
Posted: October 10th, 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/charle...
Prince [Charles] has [made] his most anti-GM speech yet, in delivering ... the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture to the Indian pressure group Navdanya. "I believe fundamentally that unless we work with nature, we will fail to restore the equilibrium we need in order to survive on this planet," [he stated]. He plunged straight into the most controversial and emotive of all the debates over GM crops and foods by highlighting the suicides of small farmers. Tens of thousands killed themselves in India after getting into debt. The suicides were occurring long before GM crops were introduced, but campaigners say that the technology has made things worse because the seeds are more expensive and have not increased yields to match. The biotech industry strongly denies this, but two official reports have suggested that there "could" be a possible link. Prince Charles expressed no doubts in his lecture, delivered at the invitation of Dr Vandana Shiva, the founder of Navdanya, and one of the leading proponents of the technology's role in the deaths. He spoke of "the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming in part from the failure of many GM crop varieties". Broadening his offensive, he said that "any GM crop will inevitably contaminate neighbouring fields", making it impossible to maintain the integrity of organic and conventional crops. For the first time in history this would lead to "one man's system of farming effectively destroying the choice of another man's" and "turn the whole issue into a global moral question." He quoted Mahatma Gandhi who condemned "commerce without morality" and "science without humanity".
Note: For many powerful reports on the dangers of genetically modified organisms, click here.
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