"If they think this is the way to go we will end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness then you count me out. I think it will be an absolute disaster" said Prince Charles this week.
The heir to the throne was avoiding the principle that one should "never use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice". After hours spent buried in their dictionaries trying to figure out what treason had brought on the royal apoplexy, the Prince's loyal subjects throughout the land divided themselves into two camps.
On the Prince's side of the battlefield are all the serfs who oppose GM (Genetically Modified) foods. In the other camp are amassed the armies of Satan - the big food corporations - who the Prince believes are threatening food supplies. According to the Prince, mass production of food will squeeze small farmers out of business. One assumes that His Royal Highness, who owns a 350 acre organic farm on his Highgrove Estate, includes himself among the potential victims.
Proponents of GM crops (aka the Armies of Satan), meanwhile, are puzzled by the Prince's outburst since they assumed that mass production of healthy, disease-resistant crops naturally leads to an abundance of food and an end to famine in the Third World.
Prince Charles is, incidentally, hardly a poor, struggling farmer threatened with bankruptcy by multi-national corporations. As Prince of Wales he inherited the Duchy of Cornwall which includes substantial land holdings in various parts of Britain. He is the head of the company which produces organic products under the brand name "Duchy Originals".
Blighty's Tuck Store carried a wide range of Duchy Originals organic products a couple of years ago. The products were of excellent quality; superb flavour, great texture, very high in quality, and also very highly priced.
Sales were slow. Very slow. Eventually we cleared out the entire range below cost. Our customers spoke with their wallets. When ordinary people have to choose between paying a high premium for the Prince's fine organic food, or popping down to the local supermarket to buy genetically modified food from the supposedly evil big corporations, there is no contest.
But perhaps His Royal Highness has never had to make his own way in the World like the rest of us. No disrespect intended towards the Prince, but his reality is on a different plane to the rest of the World.
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