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WATCH: At Top Level, WWF is Pro-GMO & Advocates Genetic Engineering

Nov 09, 2014 Foundations, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

Wrong Kind of Green

October 26, 2014

Read: Panda Leaks

“Monsanto, Cargill, Unilever and Syngenta are the joint founders of a powerful international lobbyist association, the Food & Agriculture Trade Policy Council. Its mission is to spread the gospel of GMOs throughout the world. The council propagates a new “green revolution” that would use genetic engineering to overcome famine on earth. The WWF is the only NGO represented in this lobbyist organization – by Jason Clay.

In the summer of 2010, at a Global Harvest Initiative conference in Washington D.C., spokespeople for Monsanto and DuPont took to the stage, beating the drum for the intensive farming of the future. Jason Clay of the WWF was next up to the podium. In his speech he professed unambiguous faith in genetic engineering: “We need to freeze the footprint of agriculture. We think there are 7 or 8 things –and you can disagree with that, and that’s great, let’s get the discussion started – that we need to work on to do that. ONE IS GENETICS. We have got to produce more with less. We’ve got to focus not just on temperate crops, and not just on annual crops, but on tropical crops, on ‘orphan’ crops, on crops that produce more calories per input, per hectare, with fewer impacts.”

As an example of the potential of genetic modification Jason Clay referred to a study financed by mega grain wholesaler Cargill. It concluded: with genetic engineering the production of palm oil could be doubled. And: the food supply problems of the world’s poorest countries could –according to Jason Clay –only be solved with the help of GMOs, which would enable each tree to deliver the harvest of three times the conventional amount of mangos, cacao beans, or bananas. “We need to get our priorities right. We need to start focusing on the food production. Where it’s needed, what’s needed, and how to move forward. It takes 15 years at least (and maybe longer as we go along), to bring a genetically engineered product to market. If we don’t start today, we’re already at 2025. The clock is ticking we need to get moving.” (Jason Clay, senior vice president of WWF)

See in comments below a link to the video that shows the talk where Jason Clay advocates genetic engineering:

2 Comments

  • Phil Dickie, WWF on Nov 10, 2014

    I’d encourage watching of the whole video, not just the few seconds lifted out of context to misrepresent WWF’s position on GMOs, The whole context is the issue of feeding nine – or 11 billion – from planetary resources that are straining with seven billion. While retaining any natural world at all. Those interested in WWF’s actual position on GMOs – the organisation does not endorse or promote GMOs, supports a precautionary approach and the retention of non-GMO options for crops where GM seedstock is prevalent can be found at http://bit.ly/1ql3QNI .

  • Prince Bernhard on Nov 09, 2014

    WWF parntners with Coca-Cola which has a long trail of human rights and environmental abuses.

    The WWF was cofounded by Prince Bernard of the Netherlands. Their first big corporate sponsor was Royal Dutch Shell.

    Bernhard also cofounded and chaired (until the 1976 Lockheed affair) the Bilderberg group, for which he recruited powerful businessmen and old friends from his days in the elite Nazi Reiter-SS, and from his post at the notorious IG Farben.

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