James Kanter at the New York Times tells us about negotiations towards the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Genetic modification (GM, genetic engineering) is a big sticking point, as we knew it would be.
‘There can’t be a trade agreement without a serious and significant commitment to agriculture,’ says the US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. No there can’t.
At least, say I, not if the TTIP is to mean lowering European standards about GM. It’s easy for Mr Vilsack to say that European consumers ‘ought to have a choice’ whether to use biotech foods, but genes on the land don’t respect that. And by the way, Mr Vilsack, GM isn’t only about food in the grocery basket.
Science on the Land 