I read a comment on some blog or other suggesting that the rise of creationism has less to do with religion than with the decline of rational thought. Apart from thinking that rational thought has never been very widely spread and it's probably more a case of the democratisation of the means of expression, I was fed a perfect example today - the day after it became legal to plant GM crops in NSW. This example consisted of two women having a slanging match on the BBC. One of them supported GM crops and works for some lab trying to develop GM biofuel crops. The other belongs to some green outfit (sorry I was only half listening) and was producing all and any assertion that has ever been made against the said crops. This mutual disinformation session was accompanied by quotes from people shopping at a farmers' market in London. I just remember one person saying that it was "unnatural" to have 25 cabbage crops every year because cabbage is a winter crop. The person, presumably, lives in the highly "unnatural" environment of London, but never mind. It was as if the program producers had actually set out to feed every imaginable prejudice on the subject. Consistent with my "democratisation" theme, I suspect that the production values of organisations like the BBC have shifted from the "authoritative voice" which used to derive from the establishment - whether government, the City, Oxbridge, whatever - to responding to the comments posted in 'Have Your Say'.

Deliberate obfuscation by the media aside, I'm convinced by the argument that GM crops are safe to eat, basically because I don't think that we take on the genetic characteristics of the food we consume. GM seems like a much healthier option than, say, heavy reliance on chemical pesticides (though I'm not clear that GM does actually reduce the need for chemicals). If the function of genes is to express proteins, which are the basic building blocks of life, then what we are going to eat is just protein, isn't it?*

I find the issue of biodiversity far more worrying as the corporations that invent these new plant varieties hold intellectual property on these building blocks. It is well known that GM seed, once introduced, spreads far and wide, contaminating non-GM crops. It seems to me that there are genuine issues relating to the long-term sustainability of GM farming practices - although, it must be said, these issues also relate to industrial farming systems as a whole. A further concern though is the power that ownership of seed confers on a handful of corporations. Again, however, it's not a radical change since corporations already exercise considerable control over food production and distribution. The GM technology is just another step in consolidating this control, while favouring the owners of GM technology over other corporations (economists call this competition).

NSW farmers are understandably worried because they don't know where the GM crops are going to be planted, they know there is (irrational?) public opposition to consumption of such products and they are afraid for the continuation of the market for their non-GM output. Most of them are used to selling their output to this or that corporation and what must be most unclear to them is which corporation is going to win the competition to monopolise the market for wheat, rapeseed, etc. Are they going to be sued because they were contracted to produce a non-GM crop and instead they have a contaminated one? How do they know if a farmer 50 km upwind has planted GM or not. Answer: they don't and nobody is going to help them find out. These concerns seem reasonable to me, but the state Minister said that it's none of his business and he's not interested in the question.The very absence of regulation requiring information is, of course, a policy to favour the GM varieties/corporations over others.

* I do not understand the objection of organic farmers/consumers to GM. GM is an essentially organic technology. To me 'organic' means free or inorganic chemicals - ETA: and toxins (which I admit could be organic, but most GM products don't seem to qualify).