There are times when we as human beings are forced to confront our feelings regarding major issues e.g. if Chelsea FC and Arsenal FC are to meet in the FA Cup Final, and I stand to make a reasonable amount of money on a Chelsea win; does my predisposition towards a Chelsea loss (which I believe should always happen…infact, I think this is a form of natural justice) trump my lust for money, which is considerable? This is indeed a conundrum. I’d have to seriously consider whether indulging my hatred of Chelsea would be worth missing out on a possible trip to Vegas, assuming my missus would approve. No easy answers to be found here, friends.

On a much grander scale, humanity is still coming to terms with the fact that the resources we have are running out, and attempting to address the situation has left us between a rock and a hard place. I read this article on the BBC News website which highlights the crisis in food supply that is brewing. The article also helpfully presents a possible solution to the would-be problem: Genetically Modified (GM) Foods, or certainly the technology behind it. GM Foods have been around for a while. You can read this Wikipedia page for stats, but I think it’s safe to say that if you live in the US or Europe today, there’s a good chance you have consumed something with GM tech in it. Basically, the idea here is that those who are against GM will have to compromise at some point to ensure that a larger proportion of humanity is fed.

GM is a controversial term, but the idea of genetic engineering is in keeping with humanity’s need to improve on God’s work for purposes of self-preservation, or for cosmetic reasons. This is in some way related to the issue of cloning stem cells…or the possibility of choosing traits in our children before they are born. It’s inteferring with nature, any way you put it. This is not always problematic, as most would agree that at least a few of our triumphs in the field of medicine can be argued as doing just that. This is a question of lines, and where they should be drawn; heck, if they should be drawn at all. The motives in some cases for “making changes” are clearly understandable (“Superman” Christopher Reeves was a big proponent of Stem Cell research. I can’t say I could challenge that, seeing what he had to live through being paralysed from the neck down). In others, they are a bit iffy (Mother tells doctor to only preserve fetuses that have green eyes, instead of regular brown). In addition to these, in the case of GM you have issues like Intellectual Property, Financial Profitability (big warning signs here for both of these), and Health and Safety. The companies that push this…they stand to make a mint. We’ve all seen what the search for profit can do. How can we be sure that all of this “tampering” is safe? Do we NEED to do this?

It’s funny how perspectives can change with time and experience. I worked in the Produce department at a Super Market in London years ago, and I can honestly say I wasn’t the least bit bothered about all the GM brouhaha. They said it made crops cheaper to grow; more resistant to weeds and viruses and stuff; plus the end-product looked good. I spent a considerable amount of time stacking apples, courgettes and potatoes. I never saw fruits and veggies that looked so appealing. We had a bunch of fruit trees in our compound when I was growing up in Nigeria. There was mango, orange, tangerine, oil palm, avocado, paw paw, sugar cane, plantain, guava, banana…and another species of banana. There were more, but I think I’ve made my point – I know fruit. Fruit never looked sexy till I got to England. I actually wanted to eat fruit there, rather than just pluck them because they were available (ironically, I only now truly appreciate the benefits of consuming all of that as a child). Also, If you didn’t want to purchase GM foods in the store you could avoid them e.g. by paying for that Organic stuff – if you were rich. No harm, no foul. I never really thought about the far-reaching implications until fairly recently.

The first time it registered as anything more than just “advanced cropping techniques” was when I saw a square watermelon on TV. I am not sure why I thought it was GM, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this square watermelon scared me…big time. Have you ever seen a square watermelon? It just seems so…wrong; at least that’s what I thought at the time. I paid more attention to GM after that; plus I vowed not to eat any more watermelons until they had been put through an extremely stringent identity verification process. It turns out I needn’t have worried; square watermelons are not GM products, and they cost a fortune!

In any case, the issue is coming to a head as time moves on. It’s one thing to say that food is expensive, or not, as the case may be; but it is something else entirely to say it is unavailable, even for those who would be able to afford it. This brings up a question. Is this really an issue of food scarcity, or is there more to it? The UN released numbers showing that, as of December 2008, almost a billion people are registered members of the “starving class”. As you can imagine, most of those are in poor or developing countries. It would seem that the key problem might not be over-population or a lack of food as some would think, but poverty and food distribution (further complicated by corruption and other factors). It is not that population is not an issue, but that the problem still exists in the absence of the population issue. For instance, Bangladesh suffers from over-population and a lot of people are starving. This is true. However, Nigeria and Brazil (while densely populated) have substantial food available and people are still starving. There are systems in place that govern how crops are cultivated and distributed e.g. countries that owe money to the West have a certain amount of “Cash-Crops” they must produce to pay off their debt, seemingly without much regard for the state of its inhabitants. Will producing more GM Foods in the world address this? The simple answer is “No”.

Then, we have waste. Americans apparently do not consume a good 40% of the food harvested here. That’s a shame (Shame on me too, I suppose. My contributions towards excessive consumption in the US were truly phenomenal until recently, since I have a soft spot for steak. I am not much for waste though. My mother thought me to always clear up my plate :-) ). It might help if some structure were put into place – along with good, old-fashioned responsibility from regular citizens – to help mitigate this and redirect resources to where they are needed more. It might also help if those massive multi-national farming companies didn’t encourage their workers to toss out fruits that have been harvested because they don’t look “pretty” enough for the stores. Once again, the sheer quantity of waste here is appalling. That said, we all contribute to this by automatically homing in on the nicer-looking fruits at Walmart or Asda. A change in attitude is perhaps needed…from everyone.

So, should we really be having the GM debate when more “holistic” solutions are available? GM is an interesting proposition, but it won’t address the underlying problem. We have to fix the system first. Many agree that there is enough food, at least for now. The GM debate will be necessary at some point, but we shouldn’t have to do it now. Maybe humanity will run out of food at some point (Lord knows what we might have to do at that point…maybe old folks will be…gulp…recycled). However, as long as there are other solutions to address the problem of hungry people, it will just not be palatable to a lot of people. Controversial change – particularly change with potential risk for all – always has a better chance of success and more powerful impact when there is NECESSITY driving it. You don’t start planning to have an operation on your leg before you break it. You first try to avoid breaking it e.g. take calcium pills (non GM, of course), avoid playing in football matches with Martin Taylor, etc. There are other ways you should try first. Invasive surgery should be a last resort.

There is much more to explore here, so I’ll be back with this some other time.

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