1.Dr. Prakash apologizes for any lack of profanity (GMWatch)
2.Norman Borlaug - A PROFILE (GMWatch)
NOTE: With the death of Norman Borlaug, the GM lobby has gone into inevitable overdrive. Avid GM promoter CS Prakash even devoted the whole of one of his AgBioView bulletins to a series of eulogies under the heading, "The Legend Passes On". These culminated in the extraordinary "Norman Borlaug Rap" by CS Prakash's son Rohan, which was penned a few years back. As in death, so in life...
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1.Dr. Prakash apologizes for any lack of profanity
GMWatch, 28 July 2007
http://gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/1092-dr-prakash-apologizes-for-any-lack-of-profanity-2872007
We had to smile at the piece from the Des Moines Register about the rap song - previously attributed to young Rohan Prakash - in praise of Big Norman Borlaug. We're told:
"Dr. Prakash apologizes for any lack of profanity or misogyny in the Borlaug song."
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070719/OPINION01/707190406
As the following Guardian piece makes clear, a "lack of profanity or misogyny" is the very last thing we at GMWatch associate with Prakash Jr.'s pro-GM rap project.
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Taking the rap
John Vidal
The Guardian, October 6, 2004
http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1320123,00.html
Rohan Prakash is the 12-year-old rapper son of Professor CS Prakash, director of the Centre for Plant Biotechnology at Tuskegee University, Alabama. Young Rohan has leapt to his father's side after penning a pro-biotech song that was mentioned by the UK web-based GMWatch group. He emailed them: "If you want to insult me, i'm going to insult you fucking dick ass bit[c]h whor[e]. Ya you can never talk about me like that cuz 12 year old rohan that's me and say sorry because universal records gave me a record contract and i can make a rap to get you out of business bitch. Do not talk about my dad because biotechnology is tight and you do not fuck with me!" Sweet child.
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The Guardian piece assumes, as have we till now, that the penning of the rap song was down to young Rohan, but the Register's article dispels that myth. We're told:
"You [the father, CS Prakash] start by getting your 11-year-old son involved."
Next:
"To lend the project 'an element of authenticity,' the father enlisted the help of a black barber friend, who moonlights as a DJ in a local club. They brought in a professional musician and some girls to do the chorus."
And as for the lyrics:
"Prakash [senior] thought it would be fun to 'take a jab' at those critics."
This is a reference to lyrics like:
"But then some people started to panic,
telling the farmers to go organic.
Technophobes started making a mess
of Norman Borlaug's great success.
Green groups thought they found the cure
in stinky piles of cow manure..."
Ironically, scientific research shows that modern organic and low-input methods can massively increase yields on developing world farms and without triggering the plethora of problems associated with Green Revolution agriculture and GM.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=8107
http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7370
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=86&page=1
It's this kind of research that led New Scientist to editorialise:
"Low-tech 'sustainable agriculture,' shunning chemicals in favour of natural pest control and fertiliser, is pushing up crop yields on poor farms across the world, often by 70 per cent or more...
A new science-based revolution is gaining strength built on real research into what works best on the small farms where a billion or more of the world's hungry live and work... It is time for the major agricultural research centres and their funding agencies to join the revolution." (New Scientist editorial, February 3 2001)
http://www.gmwatch.org/p1temp.asp?pid=7&page=1
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2.Norman Borlaug - A PROFILE
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=24
Borlaug teaches at Texas A&M university where he is Distinguished Professor in the Soil and Crop Sciences Department.
Through his work on breeding a high-yielding dwarf wheat, Borlaug became a key player in the Green Revolution, for which he was awarded a Nobel prize in 1970. Plants bred to increase yeilds when used in combination with chemical fertilizers proved highly effective in increasing food production.
Borlaug has always been an aggressive defender of intensive agriculture, once describing Rachel Carsen, the scientist whose book Silent Spring gave birth to the environmental movement, as 'an evil force'.
Borlaug is a keen supporter of the 'gene revolution' and of CS Prakash and his AgBioWorld Foundation. Like a number of key Prakash supporters, Borlaug serves on the board of directors of the American Council on Science and Health which crusades against 'health scares' and derives its funding from extensive corporate backing (e.g. Monsanto, Dow, Cyanamid).
He sees the publication of research which raises concerns about this technology, like that of Dr John Losey on the effects of Bt corn pollen on monarch butterfly larvae, as symptomatic of the politicization of science, 'There's an element of Lysenkoism all tangled up with this pseudoscience and environmentalism. I like to remind my friends what pseudoscience and misinformation can do to destroy a nation.'
Borlaug's emphasis on technological solutions for increased production ignores the broader social context and economic realities that determine hunger. A third of the world's hungry live in India - a country which has a surfeit of food with which to feed its population; yet nutritional norms have actually worsened for those below the poverty line since the Green Revolution. Borlaug ackowledges the problem but offers no solution other than the fixation on high yield production, 'The problem is to get it into the stomachs of the hungry. There's a lack of purchasing power by too large a part of the population... The grain is there in the warehouses, but it doesn't find its way into the stomachs of the hungry.' (Billions served)
He also appears to have doubts about the ultimate efficacy of the 'gene revolution': 'Unless there is one master gene for yield, which I'm guessing there is not, engineering for yield will be very complex. It may happen eventually, but through the coming decades we must assume that gene engineering will not be the answer to the world's food problems.'