A Compassionate Free-Marketer

Jonathan Dresner - 4/19/2004

Blundell's argument against protectionism is traditional, reasonably sound. But there's two things, one minor and one major, which need to be addressed.

The minor one is the question of whether the government has a responsibility to either maintain agriculture in their own countries (strategic or social) or buffer the impact of deregulation (since the impact is much greater than it would have been if no regulation and support existed).

The major one is the environmental impact of turning farmland into development land (which certainly would happen in Europe) and the environmental impact of increasing agriculture in the rest of the world (where pesticide and fertilizer use are considerably less careful than in the West, and where undeveloped wilderness like the Brazilian rainforest performs crucial environmental functions [I like oxygen] and contains untapped bio-resources which careles development would destroy).

And he is conflating traditional selective breeding (such as that which produced Canola) with Genetic Manipulation (e.g. "golden rice" which supplants healthier mixed diets, or "round-up ready" crops with lower yields than unmodified versions) when he contends that GM has produced "greater benefits than 2000 years of incremental change." Agricultural growth has not been incremental: it has often come in fits and spurts as new methods and new crops enter the scene. GM may well produce great benefits, but they are not without risk and they benefits produced so far are questionable.