4 ms·

Agriculture might benefit because the UK now has the option of allowing GM crops, which the EU tries hard to block for what it claims are health reasons but (gi

Agriculture might benefit because the UK now has the option of allowing GM crops, which the EU tries hard to block for what it claims are health reasons but (given the lack of scientific evidence to support such a policy) is actually yet another form of agricultural protectionism.

Angostura 10y ago
Actually the claims are primarily on environmental reasons - horizontal gene flow etc.
unfunco 10y ago
Farming is heavily subsidised by the EU though, only this morning the Independent was reporting that farmers are now regretting the decision since their funding could be lost, and that they voted leave because they didn't understand the ramifications: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/farmers-brexit-regret-bregret-funding-common-agricultural-policy-a7163996.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/farmers-brexit-regret-b... It could be spin, the farmers I know though (I'm originally from a very rural town in mid-Wales) don't really understand what GM means, they're old school wellies and corn hanging out their mouth types.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  The Independent might as well be the official state outlet of the EU as far as I can tell. You'd get more balanced coverage from reading Chinese media about China. Just taking a few representative headlines from its website: http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brexit http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brexit "Why there could be post-Brexit riots this summer" "Ford to consider closing UK factories in Leave towns after Brexit" "The only way to save Britain after Brexit? Stop London's dominance" "Brexit blamed for Bank of Japan monetary stimulus plans" "Brexit doesn't make me proud to be British" "I've been mapping kindness across the country to tackle racism" "Why our post-Brexit economy can't be saved by slashing interest rates" "Revealed: the shocking scale of racist hate since the Brexit vote" "Incident by incident – the grim litany of post-Brexit hate crime"
  - unfunco 10y ago
    I actually agree, I (maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously) choose to read the news from the left, since the United Kingdom doesn't really have balanced news. The BBC, for example, might as well be the official state outlet of the Conservatives and American news democrats, with their outright disdain for Corbyn, and their refusal (with late acceptance) to publish stories about DNC leaks – I'm forced to pay for the BBC, I'm not forced to pay for news from the left.
    - sievebrain 10y ago
      If you deliberately seek out news sources you know to be biased, and then compare them to other news sources, aren't you always going to conclude that those other sources are biased in the other direction? You say the BBC has "outright disdain" for Corbyn but in my experience BBC News does manage to do a pretty good job of being unbiased. Are you sure that they aren't just reporting an unfiltered flow of stories and many of them happy to be pretty negative, thus they may seem to be biased?
justincormack 10y ago
The objections to GM crops are mainly about IP law being applied to food crops, not safety.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  Your objections, perhaps, but the EU's trade barriers against them are justified on the grounds of what they call the "precautionary principle" i.e. something might be dangerous until proved otherwise and each type of crop must therefore be approved one at a time by the food regulators (which they almost never do) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_genetically_modified_organisms_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_genetically_modi...
  - internaut 10y ago
    The precautionary principle is about as scientific as Pascal's Wager and for the same reasons. It is not clear to the public this is a political policy, not an instrument of scientific thinking.

Angostura 10y ago

Actually the claims are primarily on environmental reasons - horizontal gene flow etc.

unfunco 10y ago

Farming is heavily subsidised by the EU though, only this morning the Independent was reporting that farmers are now regretting the decision since their funding could be lost, and that they voted leave because they didn't understand the ramifications: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/farmers-brexit-regret-bregret-funding-common-agricultural-policy-a7163996.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/farmers-brexit-regret-b... It could be spin, the farmers I know though (I'm originally from a very rural town in mid-Wales) don't really understand what GM means, they're old school wellies and corn hanging out their mouth types.

sievebrain 10y ago
The Independent might as well be the official state outlet of the EU as far as I can tell. You'd get more balanced coverage from reading Chinese media about China. Just taking a few representative headlines from its website: http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brexit http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/brexit "Why there could be post-Brexit riots this summer" "Ford to consider closing UK factories in Leave towns after Brexit" "The only way to save Britain after Brexit? Stop London's dominance" "Brexit blamed for Bank of Japan monetary stimulus plans" "Brexit doesn't make me proud to be British" "I've been mapping kindness across the country to tackle racism" "Why our post-Brexit economy can't be saved by slashing interest rates" "Revealed: the shocking scale of racist hate since the Brexit vote" "Incident by incident – the grim litany of post-Brexit hate crime"
- unfunco 10y ago
  I actually agree, I (maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously) choose to read the news from the left, since the United Kingdom doesn't really have balanced news. The BBC, for example, might as well be the official state outlet of the Conservatives and American news democrats, with their outright disdain for Corbyn, and their refusal (with late acceptance) to publish stories about DNC leaks – I'm forced to pay for the BBC, I'm not forced to pay for news from the left.
  - sievebrain 10y ago
    If you deliberately seek out news sources you know to be biased, and then compare them to other news sources, aren't you always going to conclude that those other sources are biased in the other direction? You say the BBC has "outright disdain" for Corbyn but in my experience BBC News does manage to do a pretty good job of being unbiased. Are you sure that they aren't just reporting an unfiltered flow of stories and many of them happy to be pretty negative, thus they may seem to be biased?

justincormack 10y ago

The objections to GM crops are mainly about IP law being applied to food crops, not safety.

sievebrain 10y ago
Your objections, perhaps, but the EU's trade barriers against them are justified on the grounds of what they call the "precautionary principle" i.e. something might be dangerous until proved otherwise and each type of crop must therefore be approved one at a time by the food regulators (which they almost never do) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_genetically_modified_organisms_in_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_genetically_modi...
- internaut 10y ago
  The precautionary principle is about as scientific as Pascal's Wager and for the same reasons. It is not clear to the public this is a political policy, not an instrument of scientific thinking.