Local farmer speaks on sustainability

By Michael Zim­mer­man
mzimmerman@civitasmedia.com

There has been a big debate here in the United States and across the pond in Europe con­cern­ing the use of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied organ­isms (GMOs) in agri­cul­ture. On the one hand, those in the agri­cul­ture indus­try argue that the use of genet­i­cally mod­i­fied crops reduce the need of pes­ti­cides, and allows for larger yields with­out the use of extra chem­i­cals. On the other side, some argue that genetic engi­neer­ing is uneth­i­cal, trans­fer­ring genes from one organ­ism to another.
Pre­ble County farmer Keith Kemp, also a direc­tor of the United Soy­bean Coun­cil, recently addressed the advances in biotech­nol­ogy and sus­tain­abil­ity at the Crop­World Global 2012 con­fer­ence in Lon­don, Eng­land. “It’s a social thing there,” Kemp said. “They don’t allow GMO prod­ucts in the EU, and farm­ers aren’t able to keep up with us.”
Accord­ing to Kemp, Eng­land alone will need to import 40 per­cent of its food sup­ply, and the use of GMO tech­nol­ogy could help reduce that num­ber.
“Their farm­ers can’t com­pete with us,” Kemp said. “I vis­ited some farms over there, and they aren’t allowed to use some of our sprays and GMO prod­ucts. It’s really hurt­ing their out­put.”
Kemp said GMO tech­niques have been used in the United States for a long time, and there is a stigma against the foods.
“They think it’s franken­stein food,” he said. “We’ve had GMO in this coun­try for 15 years, but over in Europe, it’s become a social issue. We have to keep edu­ca­tion going, do some more edu­ca­tion with them.”
Those in favor of the use of GMO argue that genetic mod­i­fi­ca­tion isn’t new, and has been done for thou­sands of years. The argu­ment is that genetic engi­neer­ing is just a new form of biotech­nol­ogy.
For Kemp, the use of GMO cre­ates a more sus­tain­able agri­cul­tural sys­tem, some­thing needed in Europe.
“The new buzz­word in the EU is sus­tain­abil­ity,” Kemp said. “We’re using GMO, and we’re more sus­tain­able than any­where in the world.”
That was the mes­sage Kemp took to Lon­don, where he deliv­ered the keynote speech on the improv­ing sus­tain­abil­ity in US agri­cul­ture. Though there is a fight against genetic mod­i­fi­ca­tion, Kemp is for increas­ing the food out­put for increas­ing populations.

Michael Zim­mer­man is a staff writer at The Register-Herald in Eaton.

Posted by Ashley Fritz on Feb 3 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.