Bill Gates is rebranding genetically engineered seeds as ‘magic seeds’ and says they’re the answer to world hunger, but according to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., a “failed, clumsy crude manipulation of living systems does not create ‘magical seeds.’ It creates an ecological disaster.”
Gates said he believes the global community must invest in engineered crops using what he calls his “magic seeds” to solve world hunger.
Food aid alone cannot address the problem, Gates said in an essay accompanying the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s (BMGF) Goalkeepers 2022 Report, released earlier this month.
What is needed, he said, are “magic” seeds that have been genetically engineered to be resistant to hot and dry climates or to grow three weeks faster than natural seeds.
“Temperature keeps going up,” Gates said. “There is no way, without innovation, to come even close to feeding Africa. I mean, it just doesn’t work.”
According to Gates, his DroughtTEGO has a promising track record.
“When researchers in Kenya compared plots of this new maize, which they called ‘DroughtTEGO®,’ with the old one, they saw the DroughtTEGO farms were producing an average of 66 percent more grain per acre,” Gates wrote. “That harvest is enough to feed a family of six for an entire year, and the family would still have so much surplus maize that they could sell it for about $880, equivalent to five months of income for the average Kenyan. In fact, many farmers could finally afford to send their kids to school or build new homes once they switched to DroughtTEGO.”
But seeds like these are not being adopted quickly enough, Gates said, adding, “Investment in agricultural R&D is still much too small.”
“It’s critical if we want to get the latest seed technology to farmers as fast as we can,” he exclaimed.
Despite the success of these seeds, though, Gates added that science has to keep working with newer modifications “as the environment changes in unpredictable ways.”
He went on to suggest that new efforts need to be made to modify crops.
“We need to speed this plant breeding work up, and one solution is what researchers call ‘predictive modeling.’ It’s artificial intelligence software that processes the genome sequences of crops along with environmental data — everything from soil samples to satellite imagery — and then conjures up a data-based vision of what farms will need to look like in the future. From this computer model, researchers can identify the optimal plant variety for a particular place. Or they can do the reverse: pinpoint the optimal place to grow a specific crop,” Gates said.
However, André Leu, organic farming expert, former president of IFOAM Organics International, and author of “Growing Life: Regenerating Farming and Ranching,” criticized Gates for calling his genetically modified seeds “magical.”
“This is patently false and an example of spin doctoring by public relations companies to rebrand products that are widely regarded as Frankenfoods,” Leu said.
According to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., environmental activist, author, and founder of Navdanya International, “[Natural] seeds as the source of life are magical. They hold their implicate order within them, and unfold to relocate the unique patterns and structures of life in its diversity.”
In contrast, Shiva said, “Genetically engineered seeds have been made to own life through patents.”
Shiva added:
“[Genetically engineered seeds] are a failed technology.
“Herbicide-resistant crops were supposed to control weeds. They have created superweeds. Bt toxin crops were supposed to control pests. They have created super pests, increased the need for pesticides, increased farmers’ debt and driven farmers to suicide in India.
“A failed, clumsy, crude manipulation of living systems does not create ‘magical seeds.’
“It creates an ecological disaster of monocultures of GMOs [genetically modified organisms] displacing the rich diversity of crops that we need for the health of people and the health of the planet.”
According to Gates, he’s concerned about the planet — at least how it may be impacted by climate change.
Sources: TheGatewayPundit, The Western Journal