SASKATOON – When all the hype about agricultural biotechnology has faded, will farmers be any better off?
That’s the question critic Brewster Kneen thinks needs to be asked. He also thinks it’s being ignored by an industry convinced of its own virtues.
“Farmers are looking for some kind of saviour from their problems, and they’re too susceptible to this kind of bill of goods,” said the Vancouver-based Kneen, who has written books about Cargill and canola and writes a food industry newsletter.
He thinks biotechnology conferences such as the one held in Saskatoon June 11-14 don’t discuss the important economic and social consequences of genetically engineered plants and animals, but merely supply how-to information based on the assumption that biotech is good. The conference drew hundreds of biotechnology experts from around the world. The Saskatchewan government is aggressively trying to centre the Canadian biotechnological industry in a research park connected to the University of Saskatchewan.
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Kneen thinks control of biotechnological innovations, such as herbicide-resistant crops, is becoming increasingly concentrated in a few hands, and the corporate goal is not to make the farmer rich, he said.
Kneen suggested the corporate controllers of biotechnology will pass little benefit to farmers.
“They will put (prices) as high as they can get away with so that it’s just marginally profitable for the farmer to use it.”
