Tag Archives: Norman Borlaug

Is GMO Always Bad?

I was chatting with a colleague this morning about mass agricultural commercialization vs. small scale total organic farming, and the idea that maybe the sustainable truth is somewhere in the middle. We discussed how important it is to hear each side out, and see where there’s common ground and a balance for the common good.

Then someone forwarded me a tribute on the life of Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Norman Borlaug, who passed away recently on September 12, 2009.

According to Andrew Steele’s article in the Globe and Mail, The Death of the Greatest Human Being Who Ever Lived, Borlaug spent his life focused on genetic research “specifically to alleviate starvation in the developing world. His goal was always to attack famine, not merely to improve margins in agribusiness.”

In favour of which side does one rule, in the moral dilemma when GMO’d strains of grain saved hundreds of millions of lives that might otherwise have been lost to starvation?

Hmmm, for me, that’s food for thought.