Starving Nation Turns Down Bioengineered Corn

The Washington Post has a story about Zimbabwe turning down shipments of genetically engineered corn, even though the country is experiencing a severe drought and starvation. Zimbabwe is afraid some of the corn will end up planted instead of eaten -- and growing patented corn is a no-no, of course! If the corn is planted even once, it may contaminate all future crops grown in those fields or any fields nearby, leading to huge lawsuits - and then the fields are contaminated, exacerbating the food shortage. So, starve or be bankrupted, and Zimbabwe appears to be choosing, "starve". Tons of ethical issues here, which have hardly been touched upon in the U.S. press.

Comments

Birth Control

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they send them birth control pill laden corn? That would surely accomplish more to end hunger there.

Re:Birth Control

[opti6600]

This is actually an excellent idea. Create a GE crop that contains a birth control enzyme. Very simple, and if it spreads, no biggie. The trick is, if a woman wants to get pregnant, she goes out and buys a pill, which would counteract that chemical for a set period of time.

But license the pills,and you get a better system for controlling births. With the exception of a giant review process before the granting of the pill, the pill should only cost $1 a pop.

This would be the most amazing thing ever created. Easy, simple, built-in birth control. What you can do is just pass out the pills once every 50 years in third-worlds that can't afford to buy them and go through the UN review process.

There's a lot to iron out here, but its certainly an idea.

Re:Haven't they heard?

[Anonymous Coward]

What an unfortunate book cover ;)

Re:Slashdot misses the point

[CaptainStormfield]

No doubt. The notion of a biotech/agribusiness corp suing some poor Zimbabwe subsistence farmer for patent infringment is comical. Can you say judgement proof?

Re:doubtful

[Reality Master 101]

I was talking about Europe.

Re:Also not fertile...

[quintessent]

blammo!

A bunch of corn will germinate that cannot reproduce, which it will pass on to its children, and so on, until the world is completely filled with infertile corn.

Oh wait.

Hardly touched upon in the US press?

[fishbowl]

Whoever said that either gets all his news from ESPN, slashdot and the onion, or else they have selective filters that shelter them from news about Africa.

Is this too easy?

[6Yankee]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but:

If the concern is that this corn is going to get grown instead of eaten, why not just grind it before distributing it? I've never tried growing flour, but I don't imagine it'd work :)