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Smart Breeding to Beat Biotechnology?
divisionbyzero writes "Scientists are developing superorganics made through improved traditional interbreeding in order to circumvent Monsanto's patents and finally deliver on the promise of genetically engineered food."
This article is quite typical of the conceptual problem that many people still have with breeding versus genetic "manipulation". Both methods are means to the same end, ergo the introduction of desired genes or variations thereof into an organism. Breeding takes longer and cannot be controlled to the same extent. And don't start about the dangers of vectors, unwanted integration and crap like that. Nature does that every single minute (ever heard of transposons?) and nobody is complaining about that. So, "Frankenfood"? I think not.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
Other dangers from this this article come to include:
Here is yet another article that you can read on this topic.
Here are a couple meaningful dangers, just off the top of my head.
1) Crossbreeding into non-GE crops.
This is extremely common with wind-pollenated crops such as corn and other grasses. A recent example was a cross of a GE crop for feedstock crossing into corn for human consumption, was known to produce an allergic reaction in humans. This got into Taco Bell foods. Additionally, it is a pollutant to the gene pool, and the farmers and companies are not responsible for keeping it under control.
2) Effects on the environment
A recent GE corn, designed to resist insects, dropped pollen on nearby milkweed plants. The pollen was poisonous to insects and ended up wiping out the monarch butterfly population in that small area. It could end up an environmental nightmare, but the companies producing this have no idea of the impact. A plant could potentially end up contaminating all crops, especially if it grew as a weed and could outcompete all untainted crops. Pollen is tiny and potent, and can travel thousands of miles over wind or animals.
3) Effects on others
As stated, GE crops pollute the environment because they are not controlled. Produced in a sealed lab, it has little chance of escaping. But all GE crops should be viewed as potential pollution, simply because their pollen can blow into your yard, and contaminate your crops.
4) Legal issues
If your crops become contaminated through no fault of your own, it's very possible -- even likely -- that you'll have to destroy your crops for violating patents or pay license fees, or be basically shut down from legal suits. In other words, everytime a gene is spliced in, that food item is patented and any violation of that patent can be prosecuted. This violation can even happen if your plants happened to crossbreed and incorporate that gene. Intent is not figured into patents... if you invent something completely on your own that is patented, you lose. If you grow something without a license that's patented, you lose.
5) Social issues
Other issues are social, such as the painful idea of corporations owning the rights to grow food. But let's say you practice vegetarianism because you happen to believe in it (for whatever reason). What if GE tomatoes incorporate a fish gene? Is that tomato suddenly non-vegetarian? Let's say you know that GE tomatoes might have fish genes so you avoid them and look for items marked "organic". WHOA THERE... the corporations have lobbied congress to bastardize the concept of "organic" (to make it meaningless, basically allowing full use of pesticides, etc) and even pressed the FDA to disallow labelling things as organic or produced without pesticides. This last part is one of the worst things about patenting foodstuffs -- the corporations want their actions hidden, and will pay lobbiests millions to get laws passed protecting them from people that simply want to know what their eating.