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from the If-you-can't-beat-them-ban-them dept.
c0lo writes:
"Russian legislators are asking the government to impose a temporary ban on all genetically-altered products in Russia, while the Agriculture Ministry suggests the punishment for illegal GMO production be equated to that of growing cannabis.
While the State Duma's Agriculture Committee posed as worried about the control over the GMO effects on humans and the natural environment, the deputy Agriculture Minister Aleksandr Petrikov seems to focus more on economic risks. Russia cannot compete with foreign producers when it comes to costs, but still can position itself as a producer of high-quality, GMO-free agricultural goods.
However, the deputy head of Russia's state consumer rights watchdog, Gennady Ivanov, reminded MPs that since Russia joined the WTO in 2012, trade restrictions can be imposed only after the hazardous effects of the banned goods are scientifically proven. In early February, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a government session that Russia will create its own research base for genetically modified organisms that would provide the authorities with expert information and allow for further legislative movements and executive decisions."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2014, @11:13PM
Hopefully the ghost of Trofim Lysenko doesn't come to haunt them. In the Soviet era modern genetics was, thanks largely to Lysenko, stigmatised as 'bourgeois science', and misguided agricultural policies based on his Lysenkoism (it was ideologically pure, the small detail being that reality didn't work that way!) were a major contributor to the famines that struck the Soviet Union. While Soviet mathematics and physics were world class, biology was set back decades. I hope that biological research in Russia today has managed to transcend this dark era.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday March 01 2014, @03:05AM
Its not 1948 any more.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.