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Dodging the Negative Reaction To GE Crops
BINC writes "Wired has an article up today entitled 'Selective Breeding Gets Modern.'" From the article: "Genetically modified food has gotten a chilly reception from consumers, especially in Europe and Asia. Just last week, Japan suspended imports of American long-grain rice after authorities discovered that a genetically modified variety had accidentally mixed with conventional rice. To skirt such problems altogether, biotech companies are creating superior plants using genetics technology that is advanced but which falls short of grafting genes from one organism into another."
...what the problem is with technology that can produce vast amounts of nutritious food that can feed people who may otherwise not have access to such a resoruce?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
A process which takes the best of the natural world and the best of our scientific processes and gives natural selection a helping hand.
Because the desirable features all come from varieties of natural crops, the chances of three headed luminous offspring appear unlikely.
When they were first talking about skin colour of wild plants I thought it was a waste (because you can see the fruit colour), but they are sequencing the saplings of these plants before they have grown enough to bear fruit. It allows them to tell within days which of the crop has the desired features.
I just wonder how many samples it take to identify a marker though - you can't use a single sample and must really DNA test an entire range of pre-categorised samples.
I wonder if any of the seed banks will allow their stock to be tested?
This is in effect similar to the genetic testing of embryos for certain high risk hereditary diseases, but goes to show just how cheap and "normal" DNA testing has become.
liqbase
Why do we keep hearing the myth that we need GE for more food?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Interesting perspective - I never thought of that. You are a lot more likely to die on the way to the grocery store in a car crash then to have fish DNA that has been spliced into your tomato make a transgenic leap into ragweed and make your lungs glow. Or something like that.
To be fair, I don't think that the objection to engineered crops is their safety - I think most of the objection comes from the conduct of the companies that control the resulting seeds, and the risk of the spliced genes "infecting" the environment. Both objections actually have some grounding in reality, but the obvious solution is increased public-sector research, and I don't see much of a push for that from the anti-GE crowd. It's a shame, because public research is what gave us the green revolution of the 60's.
If I'm wrong and the main popular objection to GE food is food safety, then you are completely correct in your characterization of those people having their danger-o-meters calibrated wrong.
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GE crops are patented and trademarked. You can't independently grow these foods, prices are completely insulated from traditional agricultural pricing mechanisms and the danger of these corporations dumping vast amounts of GE crops at a loss only to make it up by raising prices and exploiting the monopoly they just gained later on is obvious, and very real.
Not to mention the terrible weakness and loss of variety that will result from basing entire food chains only on the single strain that provides the biggest profits for the corporation who holds the patent on the crop.
Basically, it comes down to an issue of trust. And no, i don't trust Monsanto to act ethically, fairly or honestly, and I have no trust in the governments that supposedly provide the checks and balances on these companies either.
GE food would probably be fine under the following conditions:
No patents on genetic sequences.
No forced sterilisation of seeds.
If these GE foods really are that good, why can't they compete on their merits with other foodstuffs instead of having all these additional 'GRM' - genetic rights management mechanisms added.
Thats my big beef with GE foods, its got nothing to do with productivity or efficiency. People have been growing their own food for thousands of years - widespread GE foods would essentially criminalize that activity.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Am I the only one wondering exactly when General Electric started growing crops?
I remember there was this outcry against Monsanto in India quite a few years (4-5) ago. The plan was to release designer seeds with much better characteristics than natural varieties but these seeds would feature a "Terminator" gene (no I promise it was called that I don't have a very large tin foil hat). The gene would prevent future seeds produced by the crop to be viable. Their buisness model was thus that you bought the seeds from Monsanto every year.
Most farmers in India are poorer than most of you can imagine and save some of the seeds from one years crop to reuse the next. There was also some concern that the Terminator gene would find its way into the natural crop varieties and render them useless. This in particular reeks of a company creating something principally to safeguard its profits without there being any actual value added to the farmer.
I think the result of the mess was Monsanto stopped testing it and I think later stopped developing it. That a company would try to develop something like this makes me actively distrust them and its no wonder that a lot of people are scared of genetic engineering. A lot of these groups also tend to be very secretive treating some of their research as trade secret. This is definetly what I'm used to in physics and its definetly not how science should be done. Perhaps its just me but I'm much more skeptical of research done by groups that seem primarily motivated by profit.
I'd worry that a lab environment is just too controlled and the nature has a lot of unplanned for scenarios which may end up producing unintended consequences. I've some respect for their ability to identify what a particular gene as they are doing in the present articles research - I'm more skeptical of their ability to predict what that gene will do if it is suddenly found in another species say. And no matter how extensive your lab trials become they do not address very slow processes which may well occur with GE crops. This selective breeding is less controversial but I'm no biologist and I can already see that there might be a risk with a lack of genetic diversity and that leading to an increased susceptability to disease.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Which has more vitamin A than normal corn. I'm more afraid of the government and corporations getting together and adding antibiotics and antidepressants into things like corn, whey, and rice and seeding them in farms next to the real deal.
That's why I dislike anything that's synthetically engineered.
Why is it that the same people who want to embrace the wholesale slaughter of embryos to drive stem cell research - which is genetically engineering drugs - get up in arms about GE food?
Seems to me that these folks just value their dinner more than their humanity
as the rest of the crap going on with our food supply. My personal favorite is Cambell's Soup, which has ingredients added to it soley to assit in the formation of Monosodium Glutamate, that way they can truthfully say "No MSG Added", because, hey, they didn't add any. All they did was wait till the other stuff they added created MSG on it's own.
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Massive difference. That "engineering" was based on crossbreeding phenotypes, not genotypes. Modern genetic "engineering", is based on crossbreeding of genotypes, whos phenotypes are not even able to crossbreed. Moreover, the phenotypes created are not even subject to rigorous study before being chucked out to pasture, in a process more akin to introducing rabbits to australia than breeding two types of pig.
May the Maths Be with you!
The real problem is Intellectual Property. The stuff is patented. It's entirely possible to contaminate a crop with patented seeds. You are then guilty of patent infringement unless you buy a license to grow the stuff.
As for the grandparent post "technology that can produce vast amounts of nutritious food that can feed people who may otherwise not have access to such a resoruce"
Naive bollocks. The current GM crops which are around are designed to sell extra weed killer. They are designed to marginally reduce the costs of producing the crop.
There is no problem growing conventional crops, we can grow the stuff easily. The problem is stopping western farmers dumping their products on third world markets at far below cost. Destroying the local market for locally produced food, thereby driving local farmers out of business and off the land. The famines, are caused by US and EU farming subsidies.
Deleted
Capitialism is one of the main reasons there is more than enough food to go around. It is one reason a lot of grains get shipped to third world areas.
You want a government type to blame then blame the dictatorships. The petty dictators of many these countries who accept food shipments, monentary grants, and actual machinery are one of the major reasons many starve. They spend money on their luxurious lifestyles while their people live in squalor. They spend money on their armies while their people die by the use of the same armies to keep them in line. Some nations even go so far and divert money they can now spare to fund terrorism in their neighboring countries. All the best of the foods, medicines, and equipment goes to themselves and relatives of the families running these countries.
Sorry but the push for GM crops is because they can grow where other crops cannot. They can provide nutrients available by no other means. So what if someone profits, the fact the chance at profit existed is why the crop exists. What you say? Oh, all those non-captialist societies were hell bent on solving hunger and engineering crops for the sake of their people - oh, wait a minute they weren't were they.
Got to love the tinfoil hats that like to villianize capitalism. Its easy to find negatives, why not look at the good that comes and put the blame where it belongs.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The problem was that they didn't want their food supply coming under corporate control.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And in the meantime we continue to poison existing crops with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. That doesn't make me feel any safer.
GMOs don't decrease the use of chemicals. Actually some GE crops are made so more chemical input can be used. Such as Roundup Ready seeds Monsanto sales. They made it so farmers will use their use Roundup herbicide. Since the seends are immune to Roundup farners can drown their crops in the herbicide thus increase it's usage.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Some more educated people, yes. But most just fear that their food is going to be poisonous. It drives me mad -- all the things the body can take (e.g. dozens of units of alcohol), but suddenly a few genes changed in some existing plant/animal, and people think they're going to grow a second ass or turn into a shark by consuming the stuff.
A few genes? Such as the gene in brazil nuts that codes for the protein that causes allergic reactions to people allergic to brazil nuts? Or the one that cause allergies in people allergic to peanuts?
I don't see the public saying medicine should be banned due to the evolution of superbugs that can spread out of the hospital environment
The ban on improper use of antimicrobes such as antibiotics yes. There are now strains of TB, as well as other bacteria, microbes, and viruses that are resistant to antibotics that were previously effective drugs. The misuse of antibotics will only accelerate the spread of these.
FalconShould there be a Law?
If I remember correctly, a few years ago there was an African country which had hunger-epidemic going on and the US offered to help them, the help was refused because american help was GE-food.
It was Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe refused the aid unless the corn was first milled because he thought people would actually try to grow corn from the seeds. He would of accepted the aid if it had been ground or milled. And people are still starving in Zimbabwe, which is his fault. Zimbabwe used to be the breadbasket of southern Africa, they were able to grow enough produce to feed everyone as well as export a lot, agriculture was their main export. But when he came to power Mugabe drove many farmers, most were white, off their farms then he gave his cronies the farms. And most of them didn't know anything about farming.
FalconShould there be a Law?
People seem to have some idea that seeds from crops will germinate.
This was perhaps true in the 1940's. The "Green Revolution" beginning in the 1960's with all-hybrid crops put an end to that. No farmer in the US plants seeds from crops grown - they are all sterile. Perhaps some low-yield farmer in Bangledesh plants crop seeds this way today. Certainly nobody else does.
If you are worried about corporate seed control, we are there already. Do some reading. We have been there since at least 1970. We would all be starving if non-hybrid crops were being grown today.