The last few weeks me and the fabulous journalist Emma Härdmark have been working on this small reportage about why Swedes are afraid of GMOs. To tell you the truth I really wanted to find out because I'm afraid of GMOs. Well, maybe not afraid of the things themselves but rather I've got this really suspicious feeling towards companies like Monsanto who are among the biggest proponents. Why do I have these feelings? Well, it might be connected to their past. I mean, how does their track record look like? Agent Orange is just one of the things they unleashed upon mankind.
So I'm quite negatively composed towards large corporations doing the things they want to do. And it often feels like they do it to us. Maybe it's just paranoia but hey come on, they're just too bloody big and powerful not to get suspicious about them. What are their ulterior motives? Why does Monsanto want to own the patents on the genes? To make money, obviously. Non-democratic organizations like Monsanto who today owns something like 90% of the total patents within GMO (which sounds awfully like a monopoly position to me). That is scary, no matter what they or their opponents say, I find that scary. What power are we allowing one corporation to have? A non-democratic organization whose only motive is to make more money for their shareholders.
Except from that, I'm also a bit scared of the consequences of GMO. Can we know what the final results will be with our toying with the natural world? We've done it in so many ways for such a long time though so I guess this is just another way for us fine folks to stick it to mother earth again. Nevertheless, it seems like GMO is here to stay, apparently it's really hard for example to find any soy product that isn't in some way genetically modified/manipulated. So I don't really know what to do or say but voice my concern/indifference.
Anyway here is how the story looked in the paper:
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