Editor:
John Gleeson's rambling column in your Oct. 11 issue ranged from residential school diets to organic food to genetically modified plants. None of his comments were positive nor were they particularly informative.
I will attempt to address one issue - GMO.
GMOs are no longer experimental. Glyphosate (Roundup) has been available for almost 20 years and has been a boon to farmers and consumers alike. It has allowed farmers to grow crops using only two rather than four passes over their field. This has saved half of the fuel and labour of previous farm operations and yet yields have doubled, mainly because of reduced competition for moisture and nutrients by weeds. Environmentalists should love this and consumers should appreciate the resultant reduced food costs but we only hear the manufactured concerns about some unidentified safety issue. We have been consuming GMOs for over 20 years and there has not been a single verified health issue.
And the "sweetheart deals between government and industry" inferred by Mr. Gleeson are pure fabrication. I challenge him to name one such deal.
Gordon Politeski, Halfmoon Bay
