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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!"
Sounds like something from Cheech and Chong!
Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.
The modern scientific community's attitude is a lot like my 8 year old brother at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Guard: If you touch that sarcophagus, I will throw you and your mother out of the museum. Brother: *eyes sarcophagus* Guard: Just step back from the sarcophagus. Don't touch it. I will throw you out. Mother: DONT DO IT. He's serious. Brother: *raises hand* *looks guard in the eye* Brother: *touches sarcophagus* Guard: *escorts my brother and mother out of the museum* True story.
I feel a little like Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park, but for God's sake (literally) let's let evolution/intelligent\ design/or\ whatever do what it has for the past whatever years.
Next we're going to have Herbicide-resistant children...and then how are we going to control population???
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.
What's not immediately clear from the story is how this happened. They say they found the resistant plant in a field where GM crops were grown. They say they treated the weed with herbicide and it suffered no ill effects. But does that mean the weed got the herbicide-resistant gene from the crops or did it evolve the gene on its own, the same way that bacteria that are exposed to low doses of antibiotics can develop resistance?
I've mostly read about GM crops that are resistant to RoundUp. It seems pretty unlikely that a plant would independently evolve resistance to that herbicide. But what about the glufosinate-ammonium herbicide this plant was immune to? Is it possible that plants could evolve resistance?
Breakfast served all day!
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. */
Returning to the topic - IIRC GM crops were eventually rejected in the EU a few years ago after a lot of hoo-haa when Monsanto et al tried to railroad them through. However as others have pointed out, wind-borne pollen doesn't tend to respect national boundaries... :(
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Two different species are geneticaly incompatible to produce a viable offspring. In a rare case two closely related species are capable to creating offspring which is usually not able to reproduce.
Just resistance because of stupid use of herbicides and pesticides is more likely. When using herbicides and pesticides, it is important to keep a healthy population to overgrow the by herbicides affected population. The change is pretty large that the new survivor is maybe strong against the poison, but weak compared to the original plants. 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.
In the end, every pest gets immune.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I can't believe this is 'new news' but... OK.
While attending Purdue we had our favorite Monsanto rep out lecturing how he invented/patented certain processes using copper on platinum. Very fascinating from a chemistry and engineering point of view.
While their, several of my fellows ripped into him in regards to some reports that ragweed had crossed with soy to produce an herbicide resistant ragweed. Cross pollination was the cause.
The rep pointed out that all 'leftover' crops are considered weeds, and to just use another herbicide to prevent the spread. Good points.
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.
FTA:
"Farmers in Canada and Argentina growing GM soya beans have large problems with herbicide-resistant weeds, though these have arisen through natural selection and not gene flow through hybridisation. Experiments in Germany have shown sugar beets genetically modified to resist one herbicide accidentally acquired the genes to resist another - so called "gene stacking", which has also been observed in oilseed rape grown in Canada."
That's really something: even if there isn't gene transfer from related species to confer pesticide resistance, good ole evolution will take care of it.
The article includes neat things too, like superweeds causing trouble on farms (they require dirty, now heavily regulated herbicides to kill) and wildflowers (AKA "pretty weeds") picking up resistance.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
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.
Not true. A "great crisis" is not necessary for evolution at all. It also happens when hot chicks hang out with guys like me and avoid the likes of you.
If the chicks are hanging out with you, there must be a great crisis causing that.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
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.
If people have been using this weed killer for years, it would be a strange co-incidence for the resistance gene to just show up three years after GM but not one or two. Transfer by cross fertilization looks like the most likely method, especially if the find the very same patented genes. Transfer to other people's crops has already happened, much to the dislike of those who wanted nothing to do with GM and considered it polution.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"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
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.
You need to get out more. And open your eyes. You are living in poverty while surrounded by riches.
That's their product. Farmers don't need to buy it.
Companies selling GM seeds have a responsibility to ensure that their product does no harm to bystanders. The free market ends where my fields begin. Unless Monstanto et al can guarantee that the modified genes will not get loose and hybridize with wildtype plants in adjacent fields they are introducing harmful genes into the environment for their own benefit.
The Monsanto Terminator gene is the perfect example of this: Terminator-infected plants will hybridize with wildtype plants in adjacent fields, resulting in progressive sterilization of surrouding farms. Monsanto will use this "marketing pportunity" in the "free market" to sell more Terminator-infected seeds to those farmers.
This is evil: doing willful harm to others for personal gain.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm... superweeeeed.......
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Well, the parent is just wrong. I'm a former botany student with an emphasis in molecular biology and genetics. With animals, you can't usually get unrelated species to crossbreed (but even that's not absolute). With less specialized organisms, well, the rules are a lot less strict. Bacteria, for instance, swap genetic material across species lines all of the time, and often will have specialized "sex organs" for that purpose. Plants aren't quite so loose as that, but they can, and do, regularly cross species boundaries to some degree, and even manage to pull off viable reproduction when a cell division fails at the growing tip (doubling the chromosome count, and in effect generating a new species.) In addition, many weeds are crucifers, related to the rape (canola) plant, making that particular crossover especially likely. This is a real problem, recognized by real scientists.
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.
Canada farmers next door to test fields were suid while they were the victim of cross polination
/etc/sudoers...
Simple solution then. Just edit
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Except in many cases you the consumer are prevented from having the information that would allow you to make that decision:
Link
You're using her as bait, Master!
The Flying Spaghetti Monster has made his presense known unto us! He has touched this weed and conferred upon it this immunity to the unbeliving farmers' poisons so as to punish those who refuse to admit his existance!
All praise the flying spaghetti monster, who though this weed, has touched us all with his Noodly Appendage!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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
My, what a stinging refutation. Consider me spanked.
I don't see how that is a valid assumption to make.
I personally don't know enough about chainsaw design to look at a product and deduce whether or not the chain is going to break and tear my face open or score my shin bone. I don't know enough about centrifugal clutches to make an informed decision about how long my chainsaw will last before the clutch gives out.
I'm not sure how you expect everyone to be an expert in every aspect of purchasing and if they're not, it's their fault.
You sound like you're heavily influenced by Milton Freedman and his writing, so I'll give you a quote to refute something you said earlier about manufacturers' responsibilityDon't forget, for a completely free market to work, you need perfect information. I suggest you read the (lengthy) wikipedia entry on capitalism and take some time to think about the pieces of that entry that you don't agree with.
I think it's also fair to point out that much of what's been written by 'great minds' represents ideals. Ideals rarely work out in the real world..
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The poor farmers are in other countries that cannot afford to subsidize farming like we do here in the US. The poor farmers are in countries where they have been lured into buying into GM crops and are stuck paying Monsanto for their seeds every year which serves as a drain on the local economy. It is like the whole baby formula scandal where companies like Nestle' convice poor people that infant formula is better (and easier) than breast milk. But by the time the poor people realize that they can't really afford the formula in the long run, they find that they HAVE to buy th eforumla because the mother isn't producing milk any more. Sometimes they resort to cow's milk and really mess up the infant nutritionally.
I'm sorry, but it is sick. They export their perfectly good food and labor, and we give them "Burger King" in return.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death