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GM crops led to suicides,says Charles
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ASIANAGE on 06 October, 2008 04:05:25
 
By OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
LondoN
Oct. 6: Prince Charles, an avowed opponent of genetically-modified crops, has
said that genetically-modified farming techniques were responsible for suicides
by small farmers in India. Delivering the Sir Albert Howard Memorial Lecture via
videolink to Dr Vandana Shiva’s Navdanya last week, Prince Charles highlighted
"the truly appalling and tragic rate of small farmer suicides in India, stemming
in part from the failure of many GM crop varieties."
In August, the Prince of Wales had been criticised by the then environment
minister Phil Woolas for his criticism of genetically-modified crops.
The Prince had claimed that that firms developing genetically-modified crops
risked environmental disaster. He had called genetically-modified crops a
"gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone
seriously wrong."
Prince Charles, who produces organic food on his farms, was more critical of
genetically-modified crops in his speech to Navdanya.
"The reason I keep sticking my 60-year-old head above an increasingly dangerous
parapet is not because it is good for my health,"he said. "But precisely because
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."
Prince Charles said that "any GM crop will inevitably contaminate neighbouring
fields," making it impossible to maintain the integrity of organic and
conventional crops.
He also quoted Mahatma Gandhi who condemned "commerce without morality" and
"science without humanity."
"One must surely ask the question whether, if only from a precautionary point
of view, it might be wise to keep some areas of the world free from GM-based
agriculture."