Seeds of Science Quotes

“Everywhere I went in Africa it was the same story. Foreign-funded NGOs, supported mainly by donors in Europe, were delaying or blocking the development not just of biotechnology but of modern agriculture generally across the continent.”
― Mark Lynas, Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs

“We cannot criticise global warming sceptics for denying the scientific consensus on climate when we ignore the same consensus on both the safety and the beneficial uses of nuclear power and genetic engineering.”
― Mark Lynas, Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs

“One of the biggest concerns regarding corporate control in the GMO debate is the widely held notion that Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds do not reproduce – that they are intentionally sterile, and that this forces farmers to return year after year to purchase seeds from the same company. Dubbed ‘Terminator technology’, this is often given as a reason why genetic engineering is necessarily bad for farmers, and why private corporations seem so determined to push it. There is indeed something intuitively offensive about the idea of sterile seeds, that biological reproduction itself could be genetically switched off through human technological manipulation, all for corporate profit. It is just as well then, perhaps, that seed sterility as a trait – though it was proposed and partially developed in the 1990s – was never actually deployed anywhere in the world. So the much-vaunted ‘Terminator technology’ does not actually exist. The story that Monsanto’s seeds don’t reproduce is really a myth.”
― Mark Lynas, Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs

“My bet is that had Bt corn been Monsanto’s initial product launch instead of Roundup Ready soy, things might have been very different for GMOs. Genetic engineering could have been associated in the public mind from the outset with the reduction of chemical pesticides and might therefore have faced less widespread opposition. Some environmental groups might even have cautiously supported GMOs as part of their long-running campaigns to reduce pesticides in agriculture. Bt crops might even have been adopted by organic farmers as a more efficient way to deliver a biopesticide that they had already been relying on for many years. Instead, mostly because of the ‘original sin’ of Roundup Ready, Monsanto found itself embroiled in a succession of controversies that have today made the company a byword for chemical-dependent ‘Big Ag’.”
― Mark Lynas, Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs

“Let’s be clear about the real-world impact of this activism however. Aubergine farmers in both India and the Philippines have sprayed millions of pounds of additional insecticides thanks to the activities of Greenpeace, Vandana Shiva and other anti-GMO campaigners and groups in denying them the opportunity to grow Bt brinjal.”
― Mark Lynas, Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs

“The Indian farmer suicide story is a myth built on tragic individual anecdotes and extrapolated to a whole country by those like Vandana Shiva with an ideological axe to grind and little concern about the true facts.”
― Mark Lynas, Seeds of Science: Why We Got It So Wrong On GMOs