Your thoughts on GM Crops?

[Tara]

Just wondering what your thoughts are on GM crops. It seems it is going to be grown in the UK after all.

Let's not make the thread political, but rather whether or not you would eat GM foods etc?

[PomBok]

Originally posted by Tara
Just wondering what your thoughts are on GM crops. It seems it is going to be grown in the UK after all.

Let's not make the thread political, but rather whether or not you would eat GM foods etc?

The question is not too difficult to answer, I think we all have been eating GM foods often without knowing it.

As to the future, I would prefer to stay completely organic, the problem though is cost as organically grown fruit and veg is still considerably more expensive than 'normal' fruit and veg. The other unresolved issue is cross contamination. While farmer A might be completely organic, famer B up the road may not be and wind drift can cause contamination.

I am fundamentally against genetic modification of crops. Nature knows what she is doing, we shouldn't tinker, not least because we have zero knowledge of the long term effects.

[Bushbaby]

Looking at GM as a shortcut to the selection process that comes through generations of breeding for a particular set of characteristics, I think it is ok.

What I am opposed to is when they start introducing genes from plants that could not possibly cross naturally to each other, or from animals to plants (the famous firefly/tobacco cross). I do feel that there is a very real danger of things going wrong somewhere down the line - new pathogens, unplanned hybridisation, etc.