Article on GM crops

[Stillman]

Interesting reads but be a bit wary of SRI its not been proven and is perceived as a hoax/ untruth.

[whitewind]

So I guess the real point of contention here is whether or not there is a place for GM foods in the big picture, and how they fit.

I think the move to more sustainable systems should be the overall goal...but I also don't think that with the current size of the world's population that a mass return to sustainable practices would be entirely feasible. I remember reading somewhere that if we lived hunter gatherer lifestyles the planet would only have enough resources to support...geez I can't remember the number, but ballpark I think it was a couple hundred million tops.

Shipping GM crops around the world to feed overpopulated and war torn areas is apparently humanitarian (though frequently profit motivated), but ultimately the costs of production and shipping foods such long distances is unsustainable, which makes monoculture cropping on vast scales unviable as the oil begins to run out (unless we convert to wind or solar powered transport by sea). Our heavy use of oil is creating climate change which may make previously productive areas for this type of farming much more difficult and costly. Overuse of one technology (oil) as a basis for our civilisation is going to cause serious problems in the future, the same goes with monoculture cropping and by also concentrating on one technology - GM.

The only sustainable future for Ugandans is to end the conflict and build up local production of diverse crops, which gets rid of the nutrient deficiencies by it's very nature and also allows the Ugandans to live safe, fulfilling lives. Until the conflict ends, local plantations of GM bananas are easily torn up and ruined, and transport to remote areas is more problematic than shipping iron / Vitamin A tablets in (which are easier because of their size and storage ability).

I am not suggesting a return to hunter-gatherer lifestyles by any means, but suggesting we need to turn towards technological advances on all fronts including soil and environmental care, which frequently show improvements far outweighing that of GM crops. After all, we could create giant banana trees with monstrous fruit but they would still require the increased nutrient input to grow to that size and probably deeper soils to sustain them.

Crop rotation (Wikipedia), practiced in Europe til the age of modern farming, reduced the incidence of pest and disease with no chemical inputs, increased and built up soil fertility, and ensured a more varied diet by making sure different crops were always being grown in the same area. Intercropping (Wikipedia) increases biodiversity, allows natural predators to help combat pest problems, increases crop production in marginal areas and increases diversity in diet. There are many other ways of achieving the same results which are easily and readily available to a poor farmer.

Huge benefits can be attained through alternative farming methods, working with the soil and the local environment, and will alleviate problems caused by non-varied diets. GM promises all those things, yet it takes 10 years to potentially improve one aspect in one crop, whereas spending 10 years on improving the soil and farming methods will achieve that benefit and many others combined - on a permanent basis.

[Stillman]

All true but sadly it won't work in Africa. As sub saharan Africa becomes increasing dryer and inhospitable unpredictability in crops yields becomes more extreme one of the reasons they became reliant on bananas was that the wet season was more unpredictable however they new banana crops would hold until it did and they would get a crop were as sorghum and maize crops would be lost without any yield. To save Uganda from war you have to magically stop wars in the Congo all the way across to Sierra leone etc. In theory what you say would work in practice its unlikely as is GM having all the answers. There will always be hunger because the world is run by humans.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Stillman

[Stillman]

and the plantations are protected better then the gold mines lol. Serious stuff Africa is a crazy scary tragic place.

[gtarman]

I think this video is probably relevant as to why Africa is such a tricky pickle, and why it's essentially what colonial powers WANTED it to be (and probably still want it to be)....

 

EDIT: Stillman - I'm also interested in what sources you're referring to the SRI thing to being a scam...the most controversial thing I could find was this, but even that confirms the yields and just says it takes more time. And the dudes at Cornell University seem to think it's legit. Curious either way though.

And with the GM thing - I'm kinda torn by whether or not the ethical issues and potential risks of misuse are worth the benefit. What I mean is that I'm sure in the right hands as with the humanitarian efforts that have been mentioned it is probably a good thing...but you can't really say that they can do it and Monsanto can't.

And given the choice I think I would rather have no GM than evil-corrupt GM...unfortunately I don't share your faith in ethics boards or governing bodies Stillman, too often we see government and corporations in bed together for me to feel secure in it, even if they work for the time being.

From what I'm seeing corporate power more or less IS political power in today's world.

Edited May 11, 2013 by gtarman

[Stillman]

SRI as a system definitely works some of the yields recorded just are very questionable and it has not been tested in differing environments and crops to be perceived as a golden light, its extremely labour intensive in its initial set up etc. Theres a couple good articles I have read but I don't have access to them on this computer. However in some developing nations it is definitely showing alot of promise.

Heres a question outside of Monsanto grain crop patents and Round up ready crops and not considering monoculture agriculture which is used with or without GM anyhow, what do you see as a major concern in GM crops? I'm curious?

[Stillman]

I mean do you think they cause cancer or other health issues? Is it the science making the plant that is a concern or is it the industry that profits from them?

[gtarman]

My concern is purely with the industry that profits from them as you put it, and the integrity of it's participants.

Profiting from something in and of itself is not a bad thing I suppose, seeing as we all need to make money in this society to survive (it may actually be a bad thing, but that again is another discussion)...but Monsanto and other corporate giants are of a different breed, and I'm convinced that the kind of greed and hunger for absolute power that this breed of corporatocracy represents is one of the most dangerous threats to freedom and human rights that has ever existed.

And as I said previously, I am deeply troubled by some of the possibilities that GM technology presents and the terrible things that could be done with it in the wrong hands. And I firmly believe that Monsanto (and any of their ilk) are a textbook definition of "the wrong hands".

Provided that a crop is proven to be safe to consume (and I have no reason to believe that something such as the orange banana variety mentioned wouldn't be safe to consume) then I would eat it. Though I wouldn't support GM for the sake of GM, and still feel that it's important to preserve biodiversity, I don't have a problem with the practice itself insofar as it's necessary.

Edited May 11, 2013 by gtarman

[whitewind]

I mean do you think they cause cancer or other health issues? Is it the science making the plant that is a concern or is it the industry that profits from them?

I have no issues at all with science, it's the application that's the difficult bit. I have very strong issues with how we use science - as a society we tend to revel in making the application of technology a must, without any regard to the consequences. We see a use (usually profit) and we apply it. No questions.

This way of acting has led us inexorably towards environmental destruction on nearly every level, oceans, atmosphere, soils, rainforests. Everything. And each application of technology leads us further down that path, even something like GM bananas which focusses on one aspect, altering genes to change a single expression, while ignoring the fact that it is much more important to work with the environment as a whole.

GM tech could be very useful, changing inedible plants to edible ones, but it ignores the fact that our farming methods are so destructive it is them that needs changing, not so much the crops. Even changing an inedible plant to an edible one would still mean that natural diversity would be razed to the ground in order to grow them, and that caring for the soil, water supplies and the oceans are still a poor second and rely on government enforced regulation (where possible) to ensure that they don't get polluted.

[Stillman]

you know a big problem is that the GM scientist aren't farmers and vice versa its a real issue within the industry. a hybrid ideology could do some really good work with this tech. Gm is at the end of the day a new way of plant breeding. Its application is only limited to those whom utilise it.

[Stillman]

I also am interested in the Gm application for improving crops to deal with high salinity soils. That is a useful concept on damaged farming lands that are difficult to regenerate.

[whitewind]

I also am interested in the Gm application for improving crops to deal with high salinity soils. That is a useful concept on damaged farming lands that are difficult to regenerate.

Fungus and Microbiomes better than GM for increasing crop yields, cold, heat, salt and drought resistance

Different microbiomes can confer a range of superpowers to a number of crops. Rodriguez's group have also isolated endophytes from a salt-loving dunegrass (Leymus mollis), and a strawberry plant (Fragaria vesca) that grows at high altitude at temperatures as low as 5 °C. Rice plants that had been sprayed with the fungi became able to tolerate salt and cold, respectively. They also grew five times larger and needed half the water of normal plants

The results were immediate: within 24 hours of being sprayed, the seeds began sprouting a greater number of longer roots than untreated seeds, and the team found that they expressed genes involved in stress-resistance and drought-tolerance. That suggests endophytes could help crops cope with droughts like the one afflicting the US.

Perhaps there are micro-organisms which help plants deal with salinity in the soil too?

These results are remarkable, and very fast. GM crops take decades to develop and tend to confer only small increases in yield and tend to tackle deficiencies in one area. Micro-organisms, it seems, tend to "switch on" latent genes already within the plant.

Rodriguez thinks the fungi are jump-starting the plants' metabolism, although the exact mechanism is still unclear. "The plant has the ability to do all this, it just can't get its act together without the fungi," he says.

While attempts to genetically engineer plants to become drought-tolerant involve switching on metabolic pathways one at a time - a costly, drawn-out process - the fungi appear to activate them all in one go. "Nature's figured it out, we haven't," says Jerry Barrow, now retired from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Much easier. Don't stop the research, though. I would love to live in a Monsanto created giant bamboo with ready made rooms and a spiral staircase up the inside wall, flat branches where I could grow my ethnobotanicals, and leaves which are shaped like cosy hammocks with furry surfaces that are not only comfortable they collect the rainwater, filter it send it off to a convenient tap.

I also want wings, as mentioned in another thread. It might be more fun to express our own latent genes rather than manipulate the environment around us.

[gtarman]

I also want wings, as mentioned in another thread. It might be more fun to express our own latent genes rather than manipulate the environment around us.

We would have to start calling you Whitewings.

[Stillman]

hahah yes.

one more point GM crops don't take decade to create just decades to go through regulatory safe checks in time as more plants are produced and found safe and this stigma regarding their safty dissipates this time will shorten significantly. As for wings messing around with animal genetics creeps me out.

[whitewind]

Yes, well the downside of using micro-organism to adjust a local environment is that they might get out of where they are supposed to be and start impacting the surrounding native vegetation. It seems to be what we do best, meddling.

hahah yes.

one more point GM crops don't take decade to create just decades to go through regulatory safe checks in time as more plants are produced and found safe and this stigma regarding their safty dissipates this time will shorten significantly. As for wings messing around with animal genetics creeps me out.

Granted. And rightfully so, I believe. There is no real "stigma" regarding safety, it's just taking precautions to ensure an unsafe product isn't on general release - this attitude towards safe use of technology should really be accepted across the board, with chemicals too. It is often found that something may have been poorly tested, released on to the market and decades later is finally acknowledged as a hazard but is only withdrawn after massive public protest (Monsanto is very good at this, but it's not limited to them). We see with the war on drugs and poor regulation in this field, that safety testing is at a minimum and a new chemical can cause a great deal of harm very quickly. I find it weird that in the pharmaceutical industry strict testing regs can ensure that products that have been used for centuries aren't allowed to be sold for what they do (or aren't acknowledged to their health benefits) yet GM foods want to bypass regulatory process and be sold to all and sundry.

FWIW, I also think that new varieties of food bred the traditional way should also undergo safety testing.

Its not the safety testing that's at fault here, it's the attitude that we need to make a profit however we want without restriction. The profit motive. Combined with overpopulation, it's a massive problem.

And animal genetics, well it's the mistakes that are so gruesome really, and the fact that so many animals will just be killed when they aren't right or live unhappy lives if they aren't killed which is all morally questionable. GM is still in it's infancy and in many cases should be at the research stage for a lot longer before the experiments are allowed to start, and even longer before they are released to the general public.

Another thread shows that Monsanto has introduced new laws in America that bypasses the regulatory process because they believe in the profit motive before safety. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. We still have to be cautious of new technology and who knows what havoc could be wreaked before it's too late.

[whitewind]

Let me put it this way. Let's say 10 years of testing for one product that takes (currently - and we can assume that this time will reduce as the tech gets less expensive and more is known) six months to develop. With regulation, that's 9 1/2 years of testing. Without regulation, that's no testing and in the same time frame 20 products have been released. Give it 10 years before any hazards are seen, and suddenly you have potentially 10 x 20 - 200 products from 1 company on the market, and how are we easily going to figure out where the problem lies???

[gtarman]

I've actually changed my tune in the last couple of days the more I've thought about it and read about it - I'm now against GM altogether.

While I recognise that it could be used for humanitarian purposes, I think the risks, the potential for abuse and for environmental damage, and for putting even more power into the wrong hands - is all not worth the gain (which I'm actually doubting the significance of now in some regards).

I believe GM represents a potentially greatly destructive power, that I am unconvinced our species has the responsibility (or even the inclination) to keep in check.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that once these modified organisms are out there, there's no putting them back in the test tube. If we start messing around as Monsanto have done with adding herbicidal and pesticidal genes and substances into our crops, those traits aren't just confined to those original plants - they can and will reproduce and spread those genes.

All it would take is one particularly vigorous reproducer with the wrong properties, and entire sections of agriculture could potentially become unsafe or be rendered otherwise useless. And it would be naive to think that companies like Monsanto don't realize this, or haven't considered how they might use it to further their own ends.

I actually think this technology bears a striking resemblance at it's current phase of development as nuclear physics did back before they used that science to create the most destructive weapons in existence. And as I hear it, there are cases of "backyard biologists" taking part in their own GM experiments. Who's to say this too couldn't be used as a weapon?

If somebody could create a variety of wheat (in keeping with my earlier example) that had the genes of a highly toxic plant (let's say, the castor bean), and made it a prolific reproducer, with the right deployment strategy they could (in theory) poison the bread bowls of entire continents.

And I could never trust ethics boards and government committees with the safety of things like GM. Aside from the fact that they can be corrupted, infiltrated and bought off - there's no way of stopping things that operate outside the spectrum of legality and due process.

History and organisations like Wikileaks have shown that even our Western governments engage in illegal activities and black ops (although there most likely is not even records kept of most true black ops). Corporations do this too, and to a much larger and more sinister extent than government many would argue, as they are never held to the same levels of accountability, scrutiny, and transparency as governments are.

Edited May 14, 2013 by gtarman

[whitewind]

Vast tracts of wild species are being made extinct, neo-nicotinoids allegedly killing off not just the honey bee but hundreds of pollinators and otherwise useful (to the environment) insects. And Monsanto think they will fix it all by genetically engineering a new honey bee resistant to Colony Collapse Disorder - despite not really knowing (apparently) what is causing it.

Honestly, they will completely trash the environment for profit.

[whitewind]

That was an excellent post @gtarman, haven't seen one as well thought out as this (or as worrying) for a while.

[qualia]

apparently, not content with ruining the live of india's rural farming community, they're looking to destroy vietnams farmers too,

after even bribing a vietnamese official to block an environmental impact study

what an upstanding corporate citizen, our monsanto.

[LokStok]

and then there's Indonesia.

"Chris J. Peterson, lead manager in Indonesia for the world's largest seed company, US-based Monsanto, said that Indonesia should stop relying on traditional hybrid corn seeds and put aside concerns over the safety of biotech plants in a bid to raise production and become self-sufficient in corn, which is used as a basic ingredient in animal feed."

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/04/27/monsanto-touts-gm-corn-reduce-rising-imports.html

[qualia]

*sigh*

[Stillman]

You guys just dirtied up this thread with Monsanto shit when we were discussing GM.

Monsanto is a chemical company that creates plant products to better increase there market share of the global agricultural industry they use terrible bulling tactics and probably in time "round up ready" crops will most likely be linked with cancer.

GM is a system by which specific traits can be brought out in a plant cultivar through transgenic manipulation Monsanto uses certain GM techniques to create there cultivars. I'm so sick of the Monsanto augument. Not saying its not valid just saying educate your selves and keep an open mind. Gm is not the boogie man its a form of plant breeding and that is all. It will be used and it is safe. (Especially when you take into account all the pesticides and fertilisers we use on crops any way). If you want to live in Utopia you might want to become a scientolagist and save up for that ticket on the ship to the new world as this ones fucked sadly.

I am a little disappointed in the conservative headspace on this forum regarding the potential application a bit surprised actually.

And without wanting to defend Monsanto (because they are the devil) this article is not worth the internet it was sent on.. http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/should-monsanto-be-allowed-to-bring-genetically-engineered-crops-to-vietnam/

Thats me for this thread, I've put forth information if people are interested in having a look check it out if not so be it thats cool too. But I'm not going to argue and I'm not going to respond after this post.

[whitewind]

That's a real shame Stillman you were making a good case and I was enjoying arguing with someone level headed, polite and respectful even though I strongly disagree.

Unfortunately to discuss regulation one has to include the problem of Monsanto as they are currently trying to wreck any sensible discussion on safety and the very real need to regulate such a potentially devastating industry and prevent reduce environmental harm.

I guess it would be like having a discussion on eugenics while the Nazis were busy wiping out entire races, or the safety of nuclear power while the bombs are being dropped on Japan. While this stuff is happening, conservative behaviour becomes the imperative.

[whitewind]

/ iphone double

Edited May 18, 2013 by whitewind