Plant Biotech Blog

Scientists in the United Kingdom are attacking Prince Charles for calling biotechnology “technology [that] would cause the biggest environmental disaster of all time and lead to no food in the future.” In an article that appeared in Thaindian News, scientists called him “ill-informed” and said “that he had completely misunderstood the benefits and risks of GM crops.”

Dr. C Kameswara Rao

Prince Charles condemned for blaming genetically modified crops for global warming
Thaindian News
August 14th, 2008

London, August 14 (ANI): Scientists have condemned Charles, the Prince of Wales, for blaming genetically modified (GM) crops for global warming, and have called him shockingly ill-informed and negative.

According to a report in the Times, the Prince of Wales had launched an attack on genetically modified crops after claiming that the technology would cause the biggest environmental disaster of all time and lead to no food in the future.

Though the government, plant scientists and industry are promoting GM crops as part of the solution to global food shortages, the Prince said that biotechnology had already proved itself a dangerous failure.

Why else do you think we are facing all these challenges, climate change and everything? he said.

The role of gigantic corporations in food production was leading humanity towards absolute disaster, driving small farmers off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unimaginable awfulness, he added.

The Princes comments, in which he blamed GM food and modern agriculture for environmental and social problems such as climate change and food shortages, were described by leading scientists as shockingly ill-informed.

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