Prince Charles is right

Regular readers will know I'm no royalist, and I aver that I'm no fan of the King in waiting. However, when I heard Charles Windsor commenting on the matter of farming and GM crops, I thought that he'd be slammed and that it would be a shame because, essentially, he has a point. Here's why,

Despite the clamour, however, he is,... essentially right. The widespread adoption of GM crops may well threaten the world's food supply. It will probably throw millions of small farmers off the land, and it will almost certainly produce shanty cities of the sort he calls 'unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unimaginable awfulness'. While GM technology may not be the direct cause of such horrors, it will perpetuate the system of industrial agriculture that makes them inevitable. It's a threat acknowledged in a 2008 report from the World Bank and UN agencies. Based on the work of more than 400 scientists, it concludes that the present system of food production – and the way food is traded – have led to an unequal distribution of benefits and to serious ecological damage. It was also contributing, the report found, to climate change.

However, we should note this from the New Scientist.

The problem is that a dispassionate assessment of the green credentials of GM crops is almost impossible to come by at present, given the ideological baggage, mistrust and value-laden prejudice that have accompanied the technology throughout its tortured existence. It is clear that Prince Charles simply ignores or completely distrusts any data that challenges his own prejudices, or his contention that fiddling with nature is wrong.

He is to be congratulated for highlighting the importance of food security, even though the message is buried beneath a mountain of bile on the more peripheral question of whether GM crops are to blame for everything bad on this planet.

He should remember, however, that all farming – including organic farming – interferes with, and steals resources from, his beloved nature.

A key question is whether de-intensification of agriculture in rich countries simply transfers intensive production to other parts of the world, perhaps resulting in even worse environmental degradation overall. Whatever the answer, it would be interesting to know where Charles himself gets his data to support his assertions.

Graham Harvey: Prince Charles is right to attack intensive farming | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: