First there was GMO corn. Now there is GMO talong / eggplant. They are already field testing in North Cotabato. Warning! GMO = Genetically Modified Organism. The willfull manipulation of crop genes to create a new PATENTABLE crop that gives the private multinational company a MONOPOLY a COPYRIGHT on the plant. This is the most twisted form of money making crap.
First off, GMO is a FREAK, never seen or evolved in nature… so you bet your butt it is going to be harmful, just as the GMO corn turned out to be harmful in many studies and animals refuse to eat them. If it kills the bugs, eating them, if you see dead bugs all around your eggplant crop, do you honestly think you can feed your kids with that bug killing crop? Are you nuts?
Second off, patenting species is outright loads of bull. Note that in the USA, the tyranny of patented species has turned up ridiculous racketeering charges against farmers who allegedly had a motive to steal GMO seeds when those darn things just blew to his side of the land. This is utter legal mumbo jumbo.
Third off, the mere introduction of this monstrous GMO species can be a threat to soil fertility and a threat to run away cross species breeding destroying all the many thousands of years of eggplant cultivation. Soil fertility! Barren lands, unusable for the next 100 years? It has happened before. Track down the miseries of the GMO farmers in India. Learn from their experiences.
Fourth off, did you know the business model of these GMO multi nationals is for a monopoly of species / seeds and a monopoly of pesticides that work only on their specific crop? So next up is a proliferation of these pesticides that kill everything but their crop.
Fifth off, a monopoly on your food! A monopoly on your crop! You the farmer cannot plant the next generation without paying the GMO maker his patent. Imagine, you cannot store seeds for planting for proliferation. This is AGAINST NATURE. This is a new colonialism plunder against our country.
What needs to be done is to file laws that totally ban all GMO planting in our country! Laws that do not grant copyright to the multinational. Laws that make GMO multinational companies unprofitable in our country.
It’s a weird and dangerous game of profit that these GMO multinationals are offering to our land and our people. These are un-tested, their potential dangers have yet to be exposed. Let them prove themselves in other countries, trash other countries first for one thousand years to prove they are “safe”. Philippine land is too small to be toyed around with, we cannot afford to squander even 1 hectare of land to these potentially devastating GMO experiments.
The Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (Searice), a nongovernment organization, said it continues to oppose field tests of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) eggplant because of the risks of contamination of other plants.
Genetically modified eggplant is not necessary, Alcala said, because local varieties of eggplants are abundant.
Created in 2000 by Maharashtra Hybrid Seed Co. (Mahyco), an Indian subsidiary of Monsanto, the Bt-eggplant is produced by artificially integrating genes of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a microbe from the soil that kills fruit and shoot borers. It produces its own poison to kill and be resistant to pests.
The Indian government has withheld approval of the commercial production of Bt-eggplant amid opposition.