Genetically engineered soybeans invade Germany’s ecological stronghold. Finally there are oranges that save you the mooing of scarfing. Suber taste, without getting fat, or potatoes with more starch and less water, so that the fries are not soaked with oil. The future of the Novel Food stands before the Tur. The brave new world is waiting for us. Paradise is near. Florian Rotzer mumbles a little to himself.
Germany, it is said, is a poor location for genetic engineering, an area of biotechnology with high expectations for the future. The country, which was a major driver of technology and science until the middle of this century, is falling behind globally. The restrictions and requirements are too restrictive, the population is against the technology. In short: with all the green romantics, forest lovers, animal rights activists and bio-enthusiasts, we are on the decline. The promising and profitable gene laboratories, including those of the German chemical industry, are moving elsewhere, where they can conduct research and market their products without hindrance. But things may be changing. We don’t want to repeat the same mistake we once made with computer technology. Some even see Germany as the future world leader in biotechnology.
"Because we no longer know what we eat", writes Michael Frank on the site of Greenpeace. "Our daily bread is so full of artificial flavors, colors, full- and additives that we can hardly see that the real ‘producer’ is nature. Now the food companies promise us further allegedly better products through genetic engineering."
On 6.11. In 1996, a ship from the New World docked in the port of Hamburg, as one could read in the German media. It was accompanied by boats of the Greenpeace organization, which know how to attract the attention of the media with selective actions. They waged a kind of media war with agitation art in the form of slides, which they projected onto the ship’s side of the moving freighter. This was at least a good idea, because this is how the slogans of the opponents were actually placed on the enemy object.
67500 tons of soybeans from the USA were delivered for an oil mill. Two percent of it was genetically modified, but well mixed in. It is not much, but it is a good initial dose, which will gradually increase as the mental immunity of people who are afraid of interfering with nature weakens. One may naturally ask how "natural" even the soybeans that have not been genetically manipulated are the result of a long breeding process that uses a very careful selection process, and are therefore genetically different from the wild forms. Only then we know that they probably do not harm us directly – but if one really knows that? -, even if the consumers of the later margarine or ole also do not know the pollutants deposited in it. Genetic engineering is something new, we don’t know what kind of health damage can be caused, even in the long term. "Genetically modified soy", so says Greenpeace, "Food adventure." Maybe it will be as interesting and adventurous as with the beef, which was not genetically modified, but in a completely biological way, which also makes some things possible.
Our Minister for Research and the Future jumped into the breach and demanded that genetically modified foodstuffs should be labeled voluntarily – after all, we are liberal and leave the decision to the citizen – otherwise labels for GMO-free goods will be introduced. Are they healthy then? Or should we not also demand that all harmful substances contained in a food product be listed?? Perhaps it would be possible to put a warning on foodstuffs of all kinds, as used to be the case with cigarettes, namely that eating can be hazardous to health. Appealing to possible consumer groups, the food companies Nestle and Unilever also saw their hour of advertising had come. They reportedly want to use rapeseed and sunflower seeds instead of soy in the future – for the good of their consumers’ health, of course. As Greenpeace says: "For money we grind everything – your olmuhle Hamburg."
But what has the promising and fear-ridden genetic engineering achieved?? It has sensibly – and of course for the good of mankind, which will be eternally grateful to it – made the fruit resistant to the weedkiller Roundup. But this is actually the scandal, because now, quite untechnologically, the old chemical agents can be spilled over the plants: also with unknown consequences – but, as the Monsanto company ares, in smaller quantities. Therefore, together with German olmuhlen, he wants to override the disinformation campaigns of opponents on the Internet with solid information (information soybean) about how good and harmless the "green" Genetic engineering is.
If it is resistance to pesticides that genetic engineering, overloaded with promises of what is possible, achieves, then it can only be a hoax and a flop itself, which only helps to prolong old methods that have outgrown the industrial age. Monsanto wants to continue to sell its poison Roundup and therefore relies on genetic engineering. The soybean, whose main producer is the USA, made the beginning, then Roundup ready corn, cotton, rape and sugar beet are to be added. Nothing really new from the New World. The possibilities of cyber agriculture with tractors connected to the Global Positioning System and with sensors for soil-dependent changing yields are really more exciting and promising, because they allow at least a dosage of fertilizers and poisons depending on the respective soil quality.
On the same day (SZ of 7.11.1996), when the gift of the New World was reported – we will now withhold any evidence of our knowledge of ancient Greek culture as far as gifts are concerned – one could also read in the Suddeutsche Zeitung that the hopes for gene therapies in humans had so far been disappointing. This judgment was not the result of Old World resentment, but of a committee of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA. In the future, according to the NIH, there should be more restraint when discussing plans and expectations for gene therapy and how limited the possibilities currently are.
At last we have solved the problem of separating the sprayed, contaminated and difficult to compost orange peels from the ebbing fruit without any physical effort. Science makes it possible to end humanity’s sweat-inducing, productivity-sapping, fine-motor-demanding maelstrom of scarfing down fruit that is not consumer-friendly. One step further on the way to paradise or the land of milk and honey. American researchers – don’t they have anything else to do?? – We are told that we have found an enzyme that allows us to separate the peel from the fruit in seconds. The only question is what we should do with the time we have gained, which is between one and two minutes, depending on our skills? Is this already a prelude to the post-biological age, in which intelligent robots will make us pensioners from birth??
Somehow, however, the casual reader is puzzled by the fact that on the one hand there is talk of seconds, but on the other hand he reads that the enzymes will only be available in a few seconds "within thirty minutes" the pectin, the glue between skin and fruit, with which we so quarrel, should be loosened. By the way, the enzymes must be obtained from fungi, and the oranges absorb them under their peel only under vacuum conditions. However, after this process of reduction of complexity for the consumers overwhelmed by nature, there is also a disadvantage. No, of course, according to the scientists, who finally want to work in an undisturbed way, no health damage is expected from the enzymes. But stupidly you have to peel the oranges right after the treatment, because otherwise the whole orange will be in "Mud" transforms. The oranges can be sold for just fourteen days, whereas if they are harvested unripe and the peel is sprayed enough, they can be stored for several months.
The technical and the biotechnical progress has to offer simply beside its advantages also still other. Genetic engineer of the world, discovers finally the gene of the permanent durability, in order to let the orange consumer-friendly enzyme come to the effect! There is still much to do! Let’s do it, so that the location in the service society is secured!