Some seasons are wet, others dry; some years insects take over or disease looms. There is always an element of uncertainty when it comes to farming: you never know what Mother Nature will throw at you.
According to a poll just released by Gallup, climate change and “the quality of the environment” ranked near the bottom of a list of 15 “national problems” Americans worry about — way below “the economy,” “unemployment,” and “the size and power of the federal government.”
Scanning the web for slogans and catchphrases that slur biotech crops rouses the usual suspects: “frankenfoods,” “our kids are not lab rats” and “GMOs are not food.” Sometimes slogans can be revealing of how anti-GMO activists really boil down an issue.
Turns out that windmills are not the only form of “green energy” that slaughters birds. As if being whacked to death by large steel blades weren’t bad enough, how about being fried by an intense solar death ray?
Claiming that they “were not able to control their emotional outburst,” a mob stormed a rice field this month in the Philippines and laid waste to the seedlings growing there. The mob tore down a fence and swarmed onto the field, uprooted the rice shoots, and then buried them under the dirt to ensure they were dead.
I went to the hospital with his family and learned how to give insulin injections and understand blood sugar measurements. One thing I didn’t learn at the time is the amazing biotechnology story behind the tiny bottles of life-saving insulin that showed up in his refrigerator.
