GM Debate Continues - STILL

While I generally support using modern plant breeding techniques to enhance most crops, across a wide spectrum of types, not everyone is for those techniques such as genetic modification - GM.

Modern techniques do have opportunities to develop very significant advances across a wide range of areas from salt tolerance and disease resistance, to herbicide resistance - the latter the one that seems to ire many people. So does the ownership of the intellectual property embedded in the plants, or for that matter in animals too.

Many just rant and rave about it. Others are more subtle, but still oppose many modern breeding concepts very trenchantly.

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2191

This link connects to a piece opposing GM technology. It is worth reading. Not only for what it says, but how. And the comments are thoughtful, a bit provocative and useful.

This debate is far from settled, and both sides can do more to inform, rather than just squeal.

Plant breeding has much to contribute to agriculture. It has in the past and will continue to do so. The debate is about how...............but is the developed world being a bit cute, when the biggest gains are likely with modern techniques on crops and plants used in developing countries?

There are not many serious debates about using insecticide treated mosquito nets for mosquito control, or ivermectin as a region wide chemical taken by the population as a measure for treating river blindness, but there are qualms about GM technology to add disease resistance into bananas [ currently stressed and poor yielding due to disease] that are a food staple in east Africa. Is that logical??