Vietnam GMOs — Vietnamese Say Yes Please to GMOs
Last April, the Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development gave the go-ahead for two foreign companies to distribute GM corn and seeds in their country. The two companies are U.S. based DeKalb Genetics Corporation and Syngenta Vietnam.
DeKalb is a subsidiary of the world’s largest seed provider Monsanto, whereas Syngenta Vietnam is a localized unit of Syngenta, a global Swiss agribusiness that markets seeds and agrochemicals.
Considering Monsanto supplied the most toxic Agent Orange in the Vietnam-American War, the irony here is not subtle. Trang Quang Sen, a Vietnamese-German expert who earned a PhD in genetics, spoke at the “Will GMOs be the Future Source of Food?” seminar in Ho Chi Minh City on September 24th, citing a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
Statistics by the department showed that the total yield worldwide of GMOs has been 1.2 percent higher than the production of conventional crops for the past 15 years, Sen said.
The current supply of food, mostly from conventional crops, outstrips demand, Sen said, citing a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) under the United Nations.
About 40-45 percent of food is discarded due to spoilage or expiry, or for cutting supply to help maintain prices, he added, using the same FAO data as the basis.Famine has occurred in many countries as a result of the incompetence in food distribution and management of local authorities and businesses, according to the expert.
VIETNAM GMOS
If this is true, this means GMO crops are doing little to solve world hunger. And growing Vietnam GMOs might pose other problems.
As the EU and Japan, two of the biggest export markets of Vietnam, do not accept GM food or any kind of food products containing GM elements, Vietnam will possibly lose the two important markets if GMOs become popular, Sen warned.
The majority of GM crops are grown in North America and Latin America with 82.8 percent in total, led by the United States with 40 percent, Brazil 23 percent, Argentina 13.4 percent, and Canada 6.4 percent.
GMO corn and seed enter the Vietnamese markets – original article, written by THOAI TRAN/TUOI TRE NEWS, available here:
http://tuoitrenews.vn/business/30711/genetically-modified-organisms-fail-to-realize-initial-goal-vietnamesegerman-expert
