Slashdot Mirror
GM Crops Create Herbicide-resistant "Superweed"
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article GM crops under test in the UK have cross pollinated to weeds, giving them the same resistance to herbicide as the GM crops. The article also mentions that this has been reported as occurring in Canada, which like the US is well past the test stage and allows widespread use of GM crops. What's worse, in Canada crop rotation has conferred multi-herbicide resistance to some of the weeds!"
You really think these companies do it to feed the poor ? Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year. Do you think they do it to reduce the usage of chemicals ? Actually, they also produce the chemicals, that you cannot use without agreeing to use their seeds. Their tactics are disgusting, and moreover, these practice are a danger for the environmenet, because it is impossible to prevent dissemination of the resistance genes into other species.
And yes I am a scientist (biologist), and no I am no "greenie" (I am in favour of nuclear power, but next to renewable energy sources). But it is because I am a scientist that I can grab these issues. This has nothing to do with socialism or idealism, there are very rational and scientific reasons to think there are real dangers.
This was predicted years ago. When Monsanto and other firms first started applying for patents for "terminator" genes (plants that will not generate viable seeds for the next years crop) and for plants specifically resistant to the use of "Roundup" many biologists warned of the danger of cross-polinization. Monsanto, et. al., and their political backers scoffed at the suggestion.
It gets far worse. Let's say a GM crop was planted next to your farm. Due to wind, bees, eh, nature the GM plants spread to your field, and soon you're growing GM plants. And then you're sued for stealing the GM crop. For the basics of wacky Monsanto GM chaos see Organic Consumers.
So, if Monsanto, et. al. want to own and control the GM crops - and the GM crops now spread to destructive speices, what do you think the odds are that the firms responsible for creating this mess will have any liability?
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
You really think these companies do it to feed the poor ?
Of course not -- I don't believe anyone ever does anything out of the kindness of their heart. I have yet to meet a person (even the diehard communists I know) who don't do everything out of self sufficiency and personal profit.
Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
This has nothing to do with socialism or idealism, there are very rational and scientific reasons to think there are real dangers.
I'm not so sure -- I see lower prices for food all over the world. I see people who used to work half their hours to afford food now work a tenth of their labor hours for it. The population is growing, the cost of living in most areas goes up (housing, transportation, heating, and electricity all going up) but food costs stay constant.
Biologist or not, it doesn't mean you're a good one. A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man. We'll constantly take a few steps forward AND a few steps backward -- I know we have crop products that are harmful. Yet that is the wonder of the free market: we learn from our mistakes even when we don't want to make changes.
It's not just "greenies", Europeans are wary of GM foods (especially in England, where there have already been too many food and meat scares in the last few decades). GM foods are closely regulared by the EU.
Farmers in China who grow GM crops were shown to use fewer insecticides and are living healthier lives for it, but I'm not sure where you're getting the bit about starving people from, I haven't heard of that happening. As you said, those people aren't starving for lack of food in the world (and I've never heard the "greenie" argument that there is not enough food, only that food distribution is poor -- this is called a humanitarian issue, not an environmentalist one).
It's pretty hard to find non-GM foods here in the US. I haven't noticed any difference for the better in their shelf life, either. In England, I bought all-organic for the same reason as your better half, but it's far too expensive to do that out here (in the States). When I bought the cheaper GM foods, I was surprised at how quickly they rotted, even in the fridge.
You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't: truly organic food (insecticide free) is too expensive and time consuming for us, insecticides make my wife sick (she grew up in a farming community and was thus exposed to too many nasty chemicals), and GM foods are just plain rotten.
Stick to Soylent Greenies.
Perhaps the dateline would have given the submitter a clue: "Monday July 25, 2005".
You mean in the same way that you get charged more for a tin of peas to which salt has NOT been added, right?
So are you a tool of Monsanto, or are you simply a tool?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
Except that Monsanto sues farmers that have been contaminated with the RoundUp Ready crops. This is documented in many media. Moreover, they put pressure on governments of third-world countries to get a monopoly on seeds used in these countries. Farmers don't need to buy it when they have something else to buy.
Biologist or not, it doesn't mean you're a good one.
Sure. The same way, what you write may be complete bullshit. May I ask you what is your expertise about biology and GMO ? And by the way, I wish to be the only scientist to say there is a danger in the attitude of Monsanto. But if you search a little, and look at all the links that have been posted here, you may learn a lot of things.
well said. It always amazes me when people cheerlead companies like monsanto (previous products include good old napalm!) on the basis that they are somehow the good guys. These companies want to make stockholders rich, period. I don't see anything inprinciple wrong with GM food, as long as
1) I can 100% trust the motives of the people carrying out the research and field tests
2) That it is not used as a way of locking poor farmers into a product supplied by a foreign owned mega-corp
3) That some SERIOUS long-term testing is done in the lab so we can be 99.99% sure that releasing GM organisms into the food chain is not going to fuck up the food chain. (We only have 1 ecosystem remember).
4) The industry goes along with public demand to label food as GM, leaving the ultimate deicision in the hands of the public.
If governments came together to form a truly impartial and publicly funded research body to work on GM tech, that would be great, but as it is, its always the big biotech companies with their paid lobbyists and paid-off members of government that wave the flag for it. Would you trust Microsoft to re-engineer the potatoes you eat? Would you trust Sony to do it? Neither would I.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit, not from doing what is good for man.
You're talking to a biologist, not a sociologist. A "good scientist" is someone who applies scientific methods. Sociology is a science, it is not all science.
I find it amazing that you believe there is little or no link between GM crops and this new superweed, but you believe there is a connection between the steady cost of food and GM crops. The latter is more a coincidence than the former.
What a hard decision...
Do I believe the frothing at the mouth idiot slashdot poster.
Or do I belive the experts in the field who claim that it appears that the risk of cross polination between the GM plant the the wild relative plants (ie. the plants that were once upon a time breed for better characteristics via the old fashioned "keep the plants which are better" technique to give us the crop plant) is higher than was originally thought.
Of course the slashdot poster must be the better source. The fact that they found the GM gene expressed in the wild plants is just because evolution came up with the exact same gene in a couple of years of evolution. Strange that that didn't happen decades ago really...
1) Actually, they do it to put some IP in their seeds, and then prevent farmers to reuse their seeds the next year.
2)That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
I agree with you, however, Monsanto has been suing farmers who have not planted Monstano's Canola seeds yet the farmer's crops get cross-pollinated from a neighbouring Monsanto Canola field. Farmers call it 'Nature', Monstanto calls it 'Theft'.
A good scientist understands that the progress of humanity came from self-reliance and cooperation for profit
Again, I see your point, but given my point above, is it really a good thing to be pursuing our profits to the point where it harms others? Where's the cooperation in that?
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
(1) There is nothing "super" about the weeds, they have merely acquired resistance to herbicides. They don't grow faster or crowd out crops more aggressively than their non-resistant cousins. It just as stupid as calling anti-biotic resistant microbes "super" germs. "Super" is a term meant to imply something new and unusually powerful and deadly. Every weed growing in every crop area in the developed world is largely immune to pesticides that entered widespread use over 30 years years ago. Are they "super" weeds as well?
(2) The article presents no evidence that the acquired resistance is in fact the result of cross-pollination and not natural evolution. In fact the artical says that:
"The new plants were dubbed superweeds because they proved resistant to three herbicides while the crops they were growing among had been genetically engineered to be resistant to only one."
This strongly suggest that the resistance is naturally acquired. It also doesn't seem that anyone took the elemental step of sequencing the pest-plants to see if they are actually using the same genes as the engineered crop plants. Unless someone can show that weeds contain engineered genes this article is nothing but hysterical supposition.
(3) We have been breeding herbicide resistant crop plants using radiation and mutagenic chemicals for over a century. Where is the evidence that gene transfer has occurred using the older technology? After all, nature doesn't care where the genes came from only whether they benefit the species they jump to. If acquiring herbicide resistance from crop plants was a major problem we would have seen it long ago.
(4) The supposition that crop plants will spread quickly through the wild is garbage gainsaid by centuries if not millennia or practical experience. We force crop plants to divert resources from their own survival in order to produce the plant products we need. As a result, they cannot survive in competition with natural plants that do not have the artificial overhead. If not protected from natural competition they are quickly wiped out.
Opponents of GM crops also neglect to mention that if genes jump across species as fast as they claim then the problem will be economically self-limiting. The GM crops are only used because allow the easy killing of associate pest-plants. If the pest plants acquire resistance rapidly then the GM plants lose all their economic advantage. No one will use them because they will offer no benefits for their increased cost.
"An assumption like yours is probably what caused the problem. Think of it, assuming the chemical will kill all of something? Killing 100% or at least enough such that the remaining survivors doesn't reproduce? There aren't many times that absolute assumptions work like that."
Between the before-market testing the herbicides were put through to make sure the chemical would be competitive and the after-market continual use over the course of decades eliminates any need for me to assume anything; it was designed to kill things, it was tested to ensure it killed things, and it is still used today because it kills things. If it were not extremely effective, it would likely not be used and this entire fiasco would be a non-issue.
And as for potential survivors, we're talking about "herbicide resistant" rather than "herbicide immune" (if you use enough herbicide, even the GM crops would be killed). If an herbicide resistant strain of a weed is going to develop independent of cross-pollenization, it is going to develop in fields where the dosages of herbicide used are survivable for the weed, and perhaps strengthened over time to be strong enough to survive in GM fields where higher dosages are used.
If a herbicide-resistant weed is going to "just happen" to pop up in a GM field, it must also "just happen" to pop up in non-GM fields and we should have seen this weed years ago (especially because of the lower dosages used). Either this is a remarkable coincidence on the verge of being miraculous, or it comes from cross-pollenization.
Evolution within a species occurs when a great crisis happens: the particular survivor with the resistant genetics to the herbicide will breed with those genes intact. I don't believe that there was any cross-pollination or contamination from the genetically modified foods -- all I see is rhetoric that makes that assumption.
That still does not mean GM crops are harmless. GM crops can and will cross pollenate with non-GM crops of the same species or even other related wild subspecies. They can also cause great harm indirectly. Take for example honey production. A bee does not care whether it is gathering nectar from a GM plant or an non-GM plant. Humans however do care and as a consequence US and Canadian honey producers have great trouble exporting their goods to the EU where they are classified as GM products even though the GM pollution of their honey was inderect and not something the manufacturer wanted. And before you start harping on about the fact that nobody cares about honey exports to the EU keep in mind that it is a larger market than the USA and Canada combined which makes it hard to ignore for any businessman with a modicum of sense. This sort of thing has happened to more people than just a few honey farmers and that includes farmers within the EU it self. There is a number of examples of some idiot planting GM crops on his land with the result that the crops of neighboring farmers failed to qualify for 'Organic' status due GM pollution (aka. cross pollenation with GM crops) which, in the EU, at least radically reduces the value of the crop since organic foods are increasingly sought after by consumers and GM crops avoided.
I'm really getting sick of the greenie environmentalists
While I deeply dislike the really radical greenies I am getting just as sick of you whining neocons and quite frankly I don't know which faction is worse. According to the right wing we are supposed to believe that pollution and global warming (assuming the day will ever arrive when you people are prepared to admit it can even happen) is not affecting the earth in any way shape or form, that strip mining and oil drilling in nature reserves does no harm to the environment, that due to the unchanging nature of god's devine creation extinction cannot happen and that those WMD's really are there in Iraq... somewhere.... They just haven't been found yet... I mean if the GWB says so they must be there... Right?
My other half prefers organic food, and it definitely hits her pocket book (about 400% more expensive)
While crafting a good and sneaky troll it should be kept in mind that the easiest way to screw it up is hugely exaggerating the obvious. I regularly purchase organic food and while I will admint that it is more expensive than the factory made crud, is certainly not 400% more expensive.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I'm no bongo playing, bandana wearing hippy with dreadlocks but Genetically Modified (GM) seeds have caused at least one incredibly unjustified lawsuits here in Canada.
A farmer's field had some Monsanto seed mixed in with the farmer's regular seed (probably from a nearby field, seed in manure fertilizer...whatever). He was sued by Monsanto (I think they have a new name), and they won. I forget the details but I think it was similar to copyright infringement or pirating, because they owned the organism that someohow got into his field.
How they could tell which plants were their's among the millions of others, is creepy.
Hee-freakin'-haw. Every biologist who doesn't actually work for Monsanto or Cargill saw this one coming decades ago. Families like the brassicas are more promiscuous than a San Francisco bathouse. They cross breed all the time with their wild relatives.
It doesn't even take sexual reproduction to do it. Plant viruses transfer genetic material from one plant to another sometimes completely unrelated one. All it takes is one or two out of billions to start the evolutionary ball rolling.
The whole point of the exercise was to sell more herbicides. By making the crops herbicide resistant you encourage farmers to change the way they farm to buy tons of the stuff. There are other methods that produce more nutrition per acre - and even per dollar - but they don't sell the product that the agrichem industry is pushing.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
This has been studied, and it is shown that by spraying 90% wiht pesticides or herbicides, and leave 10% of the original population untouched, the poison tends to be effective for a longer period (up to 10 years longer on the same pest). The only issue is, is that 10% of the harvest needs to be sacrificed to the pest.
And this is why farmers widely hate "advice" from scientists and researchers. If you leave 10% of a grasshopper or army worm infestation untouched you lose not 10% but 100%. Growing up on a farm I've seen it plenty to know leaving part of a field unsprayed with pesticides can be as futile as not spraying at all. For that matter I've seen the need to spray the same crop more than once to stop a pest that was widespread in an area. Herbicides are another matter.