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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: GM Crops
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
OK, so the royal kids disagreement on this was well publicised last week, and it reminded me of one area I struggle with the party I am a member of.
Someone tweeted that they would never vote for the greens because we are "Anti-science". Which is not true, but is a valid perception I guess.
On the one side, I think there is a whole lot of benefit in GM work, in many cases. Of course, genetic modification has always happened - the only real difference is that today it is being done in a more structured way than nature manages. Which also means it is happening quicker. But modification that helps plant crops in places where they struggle is good. Modification that addresses some of the food problems across the world is good.
On the other hand, it is happening quicker that it would in nature, and we cannot know what the longer term implication might be - and once these are out in the wild, we cannot stop them. There are so many cases where we have tinkered with the natural order, and caused massive problems.
More significant, to me, is that such a lot of this GM crop is corporate controlled *cough* Monsanto *cough*. This means that farmers have to buy new seed each year, because it is modified to be "self-stopping". Which means that there is no chance for crops to make slight adjustments to an area, to deal (themselves) with localised threats.
So what do others think? I know this risks being a Dead Horse, with no clear answer, but I hope we can argue and discuss positions like rational people. At least for a while.
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
And we do it in humans, of course.
I've just been part of a research study into psoriasis where they are looking at gene therapy.
But I'm rather concerned about GM crops, there could be a plethora of unintended consequences.
There's a new kind of gene editing on its way called CRISPR which will put past GM in the shade. They can pass the gene 'scissors' down the generations too.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
There is some debate now as to what constitutes a GMO in the light of new technology. Traditionally, the term GMO has been used to agricultural products where a gene has been introduced from another species, usually using a virus that inserts the gene anywhere in the target organism's genome and not in a specific place. Recently in the news there has been coverage of the new CRISPR technology that allows for very specific editing of a genetic code that is similar to using a word processor - for example, rather than introduce a gene from another species to alter an organism, you can just make a change in that organism's DNA that prevents one of that organism's own genes from working. There is a lot of lobbying on both sides in the EU and US as to whether the use this and other new technologies should require in the GMO label currently used for products produced by introducing a gene from another species. Someone with more scientific literacy than I can probably explain this better.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Of course it should be labeled. Currently we have companies saying "It is totally not a bad thing, but don't tell anyone we are doing it". Yes, part of that is because of perception, but there is legitimate concern.
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Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
They don't generally label anything GMO here. GMO meaning transgenic or transfer of a gene from!one species to another in a lab. Breeding by crossing organisms isn't usually included in GMO.
All of the canola and corn are mostly GM. Monsanto's subsidiary DeKalb advertises and sponsors all sorts of sports and cultural things. Just like oil pipelines, the true, fully embodied costs are not considered. There is no question that "Round-Up Ready" crops reduce tillage and contamination of harvest with weed seeds.
Embodied costs include things like damage to other species. Example: Monarch butterflies have experienced a collapse because Round-Up killes what they eat (Milkweed). This cost should be built into the cost of DeKalb seeds and Round-Up. Likewise with any other GMO.
Frankly, I am not convinced we need GMOs. But production isn't the only issue. It is about monopoly, control and freedom too. They sure increase profit to agribusiness companies. Which are the same companies as Big Pharma, like Bayer-Monsanto (they merged), Sygenta (owns Ciba, Geigy, Novartis, Sandoz, Garst), Dupont, Dow, BASF. I didn't like all the subsidiaries and acquisitions for the remainder, but they all own other companies, and the seeds, chemicals to kill weeds, fertilizers, distribution systems, contract for harvest delivery. And there are few players in the system. Thus GMO is also about monopoly over food, how it it is grown, who gets to choose what we eat.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
I agree with your three points, and the last two kind of contradict each other.
That said, it really is cool how much we are starting to understand.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Frankly, I am not convinced we need GMOs.
There are different definitions of "need".
Yes, the world can (and, does) produce enough food to adequately feed everyone in the world. Almost entirely as a result of industrial scale agriculture in rich countries, coupled to traditional methods of breeding new varieties of crops and livestock. So, on that basis we don't need new ways to further increase crop yields, including GMOs.
However, there are large parts of the world where local food production is less than the needs of the local population. Of course, the rich nations can simply donate our surplus agricultural output to ensure no one starves. But, there is a psychological need for people to at least feel self sufficient and not dependent on charity - which is true of nations as well as individuals. To allow poor farmers to be able to grow sufficient food for their local community on often impoverished land may require the development of crops with particular characteristics which can only be obtained by genetic manipulation.
The problem with GMOs is that the vast majority are soled to rich farmers who do not need the extra yields for little purpose except boosting profits, and conversely these new varieties are not tailored to the needs of poor farmers who would actually benefit - and even if they are they're priced above the level at which they are affordable to the poor.
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Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Just have to wonder how GMO's affected the current president. Sorry, I just could not resist.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
Just have to wonder how GMO's affected the current president. Sorry, I just could not resist.
I assume he's very happy with the creature in question and I don't know why you would imply otherwise. It may not be perfect but it does a reasonable simulacrum of human hair.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Garden Hermit
Shipmate
# 109
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Posted
Isn't GM all about 'Patents' which can then be 'sold' or 'rented' to developing Countries ?
Posts: 1413 | From: Reading UK | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
There is an awful lot of bollocks spoken about GM which isn't said about various other technologies and yet we're perfectly willing to accept them without thinking the unknown consequences are too risky.
Mostly because these things actually benefit our lives, and the change of our lifestyles might be "unnatural" but is to the good. It isn't "natural" to drive around in a car, but in-and-of-itself there are benefits to being more mobile. Of course there are also consequences we have to deal with.
So for me (having progressed from a deep green anti-GM position all the way to general enthusiasm for the technology), the anti-GM people seem to me to be part of a movement which sits in comfort whilst other people are prevented from getting access to the technology that they need to survive. And that seems awfully unfair.
No - to me the issue is not the technology, which all the science suggests is benign. The issue is entirely about the way that the technology is used, the effects on the environment of (for example) pesticide resistant plants, the copyrighting of genes, the pressure put by seed producers on farmers etc. But those are not issues with the technology in-and-of-itself as much as the way that it is often used.
I think in the future we're going to have a lot more gene-hackers doing things on their own as the technology becomes cheaper and easier, and that's when we really need to worry as these things will be released into the wild without any testing whatsoever.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The majority of the GM market isn't developing countries (who don't have money, so produce very little profit) but richer nations (where there is money and hence profit). About 40% of land growing GM crops is in the US, followed by Brazil (24%), Argentina (14%), India (6%) and Canada (6%). Given that industrialisation of farms in richer nations has already increased crop yields per hectare the production by volume will be biased even more towards the US.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The majority of the GM market isn't developing countries (who don't have money, so produce very little profit) but richer nations (where there is money and hence profit). About 40% of land growing GM crops is in the US, followed by Brazil (24%), Argentina (14%), India (6%) and Canada (6%). Given that industrialisation of farms in richer nations has already increased crop yields per hectare the production by volume will be biased even more towards the US.
There is no reason it has to be like this, though - there are plenty of things that poor farmers could benefit from, including (from the top of my head) salt-tolerant, drought tolerant, water stress tolerant, reduced input, N fixing etc.
Perversely, the campaigns against GM in the west (which might well be legitimate given the industrialisation you describe in the USA and Brazil etc where it is associated with extremely intensive agriculture) might be poisoning the ability of poor farmers to get the technologies that would help them.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The majority of the GM market isn't developing countries (who don't have money, so produce very little profit) but richer nations (where there is money and hence profit). About 40% of land growing GM crops is in the US, followed by Brazil (24%), Argentina (14%), India (6%) and Canada (6%). Given that industrialisation of farms in richer nations has already increased crop yields per hectare the production by volume will be biased even more towards the US.
There is no reason it has to be like this, though - there are plenty of things that poor farmers could benefit from, including (from the top of my head) salt-tolerant, drought tolerant, water stress tolerant, reduced input, N fixing etc.
Absolutely, I said something similar earlier.
quote:
Perversely, the campaigns against GM in the west (which might well be legitimate given the industrialisation you describe in the USA and Brazil etc where it is associated with extremely intensive agriculture) might be poisoning the ability of poor farmers to get the technologies that would help them.
Again, I agree. The current model, of supplying GM seeds to rich, industrial scale farmers, is great for the bottom line of Monsanto etal. But, it could very easily result in the potential benefits of GM in helping poor farmers be lost.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Again, I agree. The current model, of supplying GM seeds to rich, industrial scale farmers, is great for the bottom line of Monsanto etal. But, it could very easily result in the potential benefits of GM in helping poor farmers be lost.
I'm not clear if you are agreeing, it seems to me that you are (or might be?) addressing a different point.
Mine was simply that GM campaigners see GM associated with highly intensive crops and then push for bans everywhere in all situations, which might mean that others are affected because they don't have access to the technology that they need (because of the campaigns elsewhere about different technologies).
But that's not all GM (or even regular types of plant breeding). There is a lot of work being done by various institutes (not least the CGIAR international research institutes) on crop breeding which might be outside of the commercial GM you're talking about above but which could be of great benefit to farmers in particular situations. I don't see the threat being that Monsanto isn't interested in GM for crops in markets with little profit, so much as the possibility that researchers in developing countries might be prevented from using particular tools that might help.*
A blanket ban on GM might hold back the intensification of Monsanto but might also prevent poor farmers getting the tech that they need.
* that said, I'm not really convinced by Golden Rice - whilst it is (well, it might be as it is still in development at the moment) something that offers benefits in terms of vitamin A, it doesn't really address the issue of diets which are increasingly dependent on rice and nothing else.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I think we're agreeing.
Monsanto etal are motivated by profit, and GM provides a route to make more profit (often not directly from the sale of GM seeds, but the associated sales of vast quantities of pesticides their GM crops are tolerant to).
There are other organisations involved in crop development (using conventional and the high-tech methods) for more altruistic reasons. They're facing a much bigger challenge (producing a range of different crops each suited to addressing a large range of different environmental conditions that limit yield, rather than Monsanto producing basically one variety which is only different by a genetic trait that makes it tolerant to one class of pesticides), and they have much less resource to put to the task.
As you say, the Western-consumer backlash against GM is very likely to result in a reaction against the whole range of GM research. Partly because what we see is almost entirely the Monsanto approach of patented products, law suits against farmers who have crops which have accidently acquired these traits, and largely increased the use of agricultural chemmicals (all of which are worrying developments, and cause for concern). It's very easy for the small research organisations to be overlooked, and hence caught in a blanket ban on GM.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
A blanket ban on GM might hold back the intensification of Monsanto but might also prevent poor farmers getting the tech that they need.
and similarly Monsanto et al may not be the best mechanism of getting poor farmers access to this technology (I'm sure you'd agree given your later point about gene hackers and the like doing these things themselves).
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Certain GM crops can be highly beneficial, not only to the farmers who grow them, but also to the people who consume them.
There are places where many people become blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency. Someone has bred 'yellow rice' which contains vitamin A. There are proposals to distribute this widely, but some people are protesting that GM products should not be widely distributed anywhere.
These opponents are having far less success stopping Monsanto than they are in stopping the distribution of this rice which would eliminate many cases of blindness in the developing world.
Moo
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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Monsanto sued a farmer whose crops had been crossed with with theirs naturally. Bayer did the same.
Companies who create GMO grains so dominate the market, it is difficult or impossible for farmers in some areas to use anything else. At great financial and personal cost in India.
Though the problems of monoculture are not unique to GMO, they are intensified in some situations, like in India.
GMO is a black box to most people and, in some ways, to the companies producing them.
Many people are also not aware of the life-saving GMO products.
Add the the same type of mental behaviour associated with vaccines and, IMO, you have the anti-GMO movement.
ETA: add the loooong history of corporations putting profit before health to the list
[ 27. March 2017, 13:24: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Percy Schmeiser is the farmer you are referring to? He was found to probably have known.
It is wrong to lump GMO with antiscience like vaccine denial. Just plain stupid. The crops and how they are grown is one issue re erradication of plants that are part of the ecology of some animals. The other issues are farmer control over what they grow, including saving seeds. And the economic issue.
Case in point, in central Mexico, 30 years ago when my parents lived there, they ate tortillas made of locally grown corn. By the time my mother died, the corn farmers were out of business, with tortillas made of GMO corn from the USA dumped into the Mx market. The farmers of course tried to move into the USA or north to the border area.
While we're at it, the over production of corn due to how production is increased via GMOs, has corn sugar thrown into thousands of prepared foods, at increasing amounts, with direct influence on obesity and health status. Further, they throw corn produced ethanol into fuels, with the sales job being that it will help climate change. But the numbers are not supportive if all costs are factored in. Which includes social, environmental, as well as the foods themselves.
Like I said above, I am not convinced that we need GMOs, which isn't merely about food safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
There are places where many people become blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency. Someone has bred 'yellow rice' which contains vitamin A. There are proposals to distribute this widely, but some people are protesting that GM products should not be widely distributed anywhere.
It's Golden rice as I mentioned above.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
There are places where many people become blind as a result of vitamin A deficiency. Someone has bred 'yellow rice' which contains vitamin A. There are proposals to distribute this widely, but some people are protesting that GM products should not be widely distributed anywhere.
It's Golden rice as I mentioned above.
They have bred it, or they have gene-spliced it? The two are not the same thing.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Percy Schmeiser is the farmer you are referring to? He was found to probably have known.
I thin k this is irrelevant. The plants were growing on his land without his consent. And though he knew, others might not and still face legal issues. As well as fighting to keep their fields clear, especially when surrounded by those using the modified seeds.
quote:
It is wrong to lump GMO with antiscience like vaccine denial. Just plain stupid.
Of course it is. We are the most intelligent2 species on the planet. This does not translate to every individual.
quote:
Like I said above, I am not convinced that we need GMOs, which isn't merely about food safety.
It is also about monoculture and poverty.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
They have bred it, or they have gene-spliced it? The two are not the same thing.
The article seems to say spliced. Not sure marigold [i[can[/i] cross-breed with rice.
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