A former senior Greenpeace director told more than 1,000 agricultural crop suppliers recently that the environment is more durable than the public imagines and that industry’s role in society is often underrated as a result.
Patrick Moore brought his controversial message and confrontational style to Saskatoon during the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers annual convention and trade show.
The Vancouver resident’s message is at odds with Greenpeace, an organization to which he belonged for 15 years, from its birth in the late 1960s until the mid-1980s. He was president of Greenpeace Canada for nine years and spent seven as a director of Greenpeace International.
Read Also
Manitoba Parkland research station grapples with dry year
Drought conditions in northwestern Manitoba have forced researchers at the Parkland Crop Diversification Foundation to terminate some projects and reseed others.
Moore is now a director of the Forest Alliance of British Columbia, which is funded mostly by the timber industry. He is no longer friendly with Greenpeace and other environmental groups.
He told the convention that farming must become even more intensive than it already is.
“With six or eight billion mouths to feed, this will require more intensive agricultural production, including the use of fertilizer, synthetic pesticides and biotechnology,” he said.
“It is a simple fact of arithmetic that the less land we need to grow our food, the more is available for forest and wilderness.”
He said forestry and wood use is being discriminated against by “eco-lobbyists” and that the end result will be greater forest loss as the land is turned over to higher economic uses such as “farming and grazing sheep.”
He said environmentalists also need to reconsider their opposition to biotechnology.
“Like many things they oppose, they have to consider who is affected,” he said.”Using biotechnology, we know we can create foods with increased digestibility, less saturated fats, cholesterol-reducing properties, the potential for heart and cancer health benefits, high-performance cooking oils that will maintain texture at raised temperatures, edible crops that carry vaccines against diseases such as cholera, hepatitis and malaria, crops with reduced (allergens), such as peanuts. Those are for consumers,” he said.
“Farmers have crops with better storage and transport characteristics through delayed ripening and fungus, pest and weed protection. New subsistence crops that will extend agriculture into marginal areas such as saline soils, soils poor in nutrients, and drought-affected regions. All through science that is being opposed by environmentalists.”
He said genetic research “now under way in labs and field stations around the world is entirely about benefiting society and the environment. Its purpose is to improve nutrition, to reduce the use of synthetic chemicals, to increase the productivity of our farmlands and forests, and to improve human health.”
Moore said GM opponents who have adopted a zero-tolerance attitude threaten to deny these benefits by playing on fear of the unknown.
“Those radical environmentalists that are calling on governments to legislate the use of steel and concrete over wood are the ones who are advocating the destruction of our planet.”
