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The Forum > Article Comments > The future of Australia’s food: Who’s calling the shots? > Comments

The future of Australia’s food: Who’s calling the shots? : Comments

By Claire Parfitt and Nick Rose, published 13/6/2011

The only ones to benefit from biotechnology are the companies who own the rights to it.

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Yet another anti-GM/biotech argument that does not even discuss the actual technology itself. It ticks many of the boxes of a completely hollow anti-GM argument:

1. Peak oil/phosphate
2. Unfulfilled promises to end hunger
3. Mild anti-capitalist rant
4. Corporate control/evil companies
5. Appeal for 'democratic food system/Food sovereignty'

As you can see none of these arguments even come close to discussing potential solutions/problems of using biotech to produce food. What it does however is attempt to argue for a vague new system, where 'decisions about producing and distributing food must be driven above all by human and environmental need, and not by profit' and 'decisions about food production, distribution and consumption should be made by the people who grow and eat food, not by the corporate sector.'

Well, as far as I know, it is people who decide to grow, sell and buy food. This already occurs at each stage of food production and distribution. Monsanto et al does not force anyone to buy their seeds, nor do food producers force any particular food product to be eaten. So you can see, we already have a 'democratic food system'. It just didn't produce the result that you wanted.
Posted by Stezza, Monday, 13 June 2011 2:36:11 PM
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I disagree with Stezza: there are some important ways in which our food system is not under democratic control. For example, in making decisions about what food imports to allow our elected representatives must defer to the rules of the non-elected World Trade Organisation - as in the recent dispute over apples from New Zealand.

Taking decisions out of the hands of elected representatives is an overt guiding principle of neo-liberal economics: when governments "meddle" in markets they always get it wrong and necessarily create "inefficiency". Since in neo-liberal political philosophy economic efficiency and public good are synonymous government involvement in markets for goods and services is always a bad thing.

True,in the end it is individuals that decide what to buy, but I think democracy should involve much more than freedom in individual purchasing decisions: it is also about spaces for collective deliberation, negotiation and priority setting.

As the authors point out, in the absence of policy what guides activity in a free market is short-term profit, which in reality is often far from synonymous with properly considered public good.
Posted by Michael Santhanam-Martin, Tuesday, 14 June 2011 9:49:30 AM
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Stezzas post makes sense.

The article itself is a disjointed anti-almost everything rave leading to a barely disguised plea for people like Greenpeace to be involved in Food Policy for the sake of 'democracy'. That would be an unmitigated disaster and, since they see man as a blight upon the earth, the only outcome would be a worsening food crises where our food sources would be increasingly restricted for the sake of 'the environment' and to keep the frogs and toads happy.
Posted by Atman, Wednesday, 15 June 2011 11:40:55 AM
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