VOL. 9 ISSUE 193 • SUNDAY - MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 - 21, 2016
P 15.00 • 20 PAGES
www.edgedavao.net
EDGEDAVAO Serving a seamless society
NEIGHBORHOOD SURVEY. An elderly woman takes a glance from one of the houses on stilts at a fishing community in Matina Aplaya, Davao City yesterday. Lean Daval Jr.
BANNING BIOTECH CROPS MEANS A WARMER WORLD By HENRYLITO D. TACIO
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HOULD the world decide to completely ban genetically modified (GM) crops, food prices are most likely to go up and nearly a billion tons of carbon dioxide will be added to the atmosphere, according to a study conducted by American researchers from Purdue University.
The researchers used a model to assess the economic and environmental value of GM crops. They found that replacing GM corns, soybeans and cotton with conventionally-bred varieties would “cause a 0.27 to 2.2 percent increase in food costs, depending on the region.” The study surmised that poorer countries will be hit the hardest “as they spend about 70 percent of their income on food.” In comparison, industrialized countries like the United
States, spend only about 10 percent. “Countries that export crops would gain economically by the increase in food prices, while countries that import crops would suffer,” said a news release issued by the Purdue University. According to the study, published in the “Journal of Environmental Protection,” the ban on GM crops would also trigger the conversion of pastures and forests to cropland to compensate for lower
productivity of conventional crops, “which would release substantial amounts of stored carbon to the atmosphere.” “If countries planting GM crops matched the rate of GM crop plantings in the United States, global greenhouse gas
Golden rice (IRRI)
emissions would fall by an equivalent of 0.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, and would allow 0.8 million hectares of cropland to return to forests and pastures,” the press release said.
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Davao group lambasts ‘sneaky’ Marcos burial By ALEXANDER D. LOPEZ
T
adlopez0920@gmail.com
HE ‘sneaky’ burial of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) was lambasted by a Davao-based group, saying that last Friday’s ceremony was done in bad faith. “The burial is in breach of the law which does not make decisions final and executory until 15 days or motions for reconsideration (MRs) have been resolved. The move, done on the 10th day after the SC ruling last November
8, is obviously meant to preempt and frustrate efforts to file MRs with the Supreme Court (SC),” the group Konsyensya Dabaw said in a statement to the media. The group also expressed alarm over the burial that was facilitated in haste and its preparations made in secret. “If the Marcoses truly believed that they had secured a just ruling from the SC why this dishonorable maneu-
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