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Genetically Modified Canola Spreads To Wild Plants
eldavojohn writes "A research team conducting a survey has found that about 86% of wild canola plants in North Dakota have genetically modified genes in them, and 'two samples contained multiple genes from different species of genetically modified plants.' Canola usually has little competition when cultivated but does not fare well in the wild. The Roundup Ready and Liberty Link strains of genetically modified canola appear to be crossing over to wild plants and helping it survive. The University of Arkansas team claims that the ease in which genetically modified canola has 'escaped' into the wild should be noted by seed makers like Monsanto because this is proof that it will happen."
Reader n4djs notes that Monsanto has been known to sue farmers for patent infringement when their crops unintentionally contain genetically modified plants.
im repeating this over and over whenever similar nonsense comes up. there is no evading capitalism come to this point. from property rights, to ownership of ideas, to ownership of genes, and then to ownership of entire species. if you 'let businesses be', this happens.
this, has to be the point where the sane realizes that this does not work.
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It's a good thing this absolutely positively can NOT happen. It's what we were promised. It's what Monsanto told the FDA and it's what the US is telling every-which nation they're trying to push GM foods to.
Nothing to see here. It's not possible. LALALALALA
My problem has always been this. If a pharma company releases a drug that is later proven to be a bad idea then you can do a recall and destroy all known stocks. With GM crops you can't do this as once it is in the wild it is in the wild. The TFA has proved my basic point.
I also have the feeling that less time has been spent trialing GM crops compared with drugs.
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The most honest answer to that question is "we don't know".
For starters: if weedkiller-resistance gives these species only a slight advantage over their natural cousins, it could be just a matter of time until those natural cousins are wiped out - entirely, forever. Regardless of effects I would equate that to ongoing, irreversible environmental pollution on a massive scale (and ideally the business forces behind it should cough up massive damages a la BP oil spill - too bad the mighty $$$ will probably win out). While you may not think much of those natural occurring species, for example they may have a much more varied genetic makeup than the weedkiller-resistant species that are replacing them. Once replaced, that genetic variety could be gone, and that is never a good thing. What's worse: we may never know what was lost, in the same way we won't know what's lost when you clear a large area of rain forest.
Secondly, what's product on one field, is weed on another. Harder-to-kill weed, which means you'd have to spray more / nastier chemicals, or have reduced yields on such a field. Thus the easier-to-grow canola may equate to harder-to-grow agricultural products elsewhere. That's cold, hard, cash losses (which farmers won't be able to claim back from those responsible).
Genes that spread from GM-crops to wild canola might spread to other species as well? If so, effects are hard to predict but (given time) likely world-wide. If not: are you sure about that? Can we afford the risk? Should we?
Really. I am no tin foil haberdasher, but Monsanto steamrolls through farm country like a nasty hay-seed (pun intended) Napoleon. And if you think they don't have numerous rural Congress folks in their pockets, please think again. Your food chain is far scarier than most know. I can't say I have some terrible fear of some horrid mutated crop gone wrong, but I can say I fear the corruption of democracy and our food supply that Monsanto perpetuates.
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2) We've always been modifying plants for a long time.
By selective breeding. Not by directly grafting in genes from other species.
Whether selective breeding is automatically safer "because it is natural" may be dubious but it is inherently slow and incremental.
Bananas and pigs took many, many years to breed to their current state - now we can splice banana genes into pigs overnight just because we think it should be easier to get the rind off bacon..
No, it is not 100% risk free.
...but unless you're a Monsanto shareholder you get 100% of that risk and 0% of any benefit.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Reader n4djs notes that Monsanto has been known to sue farmers for patent infringement when their crops unintentionally contain genetically modified plants.
This might have happened, but the Percy Schmeiser case is not such a case. The Supreme Court of Canada found that Schmeiser deliberately harvested and planted his field with seed which he knew had Monsanto's genetic modifications.
It rather scares me that one of the leading anti-GMO spokesmen is someone who deliberately planted his field with genetically modified seed and then lied about it when he got caught.
I wasn't familiar with the case, and maybe others not involved in the GMO/anti-GMO fight aren't either. There's a little info on the Percy Schmeiser wikipedia page, which at least serves as a starting point of more info.
When you say "deliberately harvested and planted his field with seed which he knew had Monsanto's genetic modifications," it sounds like he stole Monsanto seed and planted it in his field. From reading the wiki page, it sounds more like he collected seeds from his own fields that had been pollinated with Monsanto GM naturally. In the former case, I'd say Monsanto should win - stealing their seeds is wrong. But if his fields had been naturally pollinated, why should he be responsible for Monsanto's inability to contain their pollen? In fact, if he was in the business of selling non-GMO, the contamination of his fields could cost him value, customers, or even entire markets. If Monsanto can modify the GM in their plants, couldn't they have made the pollen incompatible with regular crops? And if not, perhaps they shouldn't have planted it if they couldn't control it?
I'm not one of the "all GMO is evil!!" crowd. I think there is great potential for good in GMO, even though there are risks. I just think it's ridiculous to make a self-propagating piece of "property", and then claim that when it self-propagates, someone else is responsible for that, but you aren't.
If not: are you sure about that? Can we afford the risk? Should we?
All good points, and I'm not really disputing any. But there is the fact that much of the world is starving, and GM crops could offer them some hope. The issue is not as clear-cut as some people would like to make it.
Having said that, we really don't know enough to be certain of the long-term effects. Much more research needs to be done, but companies like Monsanto are forging ahead now, and from what I can tell, with little regard for consequence.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Your idea seems on the one hand so utterly ridiculous that I want to laugh at the thought of going into a store and buying this season's latest bee model (packaged in a colorful box - "Monsanto Bees, now with 10% more pollination power!"), but on the other hand far too plausible when considering the lengths some corporations are willing to go to in order to turn a profit.
I can't even bring myself to make a "Sssh, don't give them any ideas!" joke, because they would believe, to the fullest extent, that this is an excellent idea.
Geez, what kind of world am I living in?
The roundup-ready gene patent has already expired. We are currently multiplying roundup-ready Canola seed for Pioneer Seeds on a couple hundred acres.
The real issue isn't the patents at all but the fact that the scientists found was that these genes are now found in most of the volunteer Canola growing. And the volunteers were found in some cases miles from where any Canola has been grown in a farmers field. This tells us that not only is the round-up ready gene travelling to other plants naturally, it's also travelling tremendous distances. So we have to be careful what we do with genetic engineering. Much more careful than we thought we had to be in the past.
The fact that the specific round-up ready genes are in the wild volunteers doesn't bother me that much. If you have to use a herbicide in another crop, any broad-leef killer will work. The risk of Canola being a super weed is overblown. Canola is already fairly hardy and aggressive; these resistance genes don't really affect that that much. Grass can easily out-compete Canola. In fact I've see Canola deliberately planted in the ditches of newly-constructed roads because it gets going fast and provides ground cover to prevent erosion, etc. Then a year later the grass that was also planted has taken over and the Canola is gone, without any herbicides.
We're getting out of the GMO seed multiplication business, though. Mainly because it's hard to control volunteers in other crops such as peas, which can contaminate the seed crop; with commercial, we don't typically care that much about the volunteers. We'll still grow the GMO'd varieties, but commercially (for crushing, not seed multiplication).
Schmeiser did what farmers have done since the discovery of agriculture. He noted a plant with a beneficial quality and propagated it. The Canadian courts defied common sense and determined that canola cross contaminated with Monsanto's genes becomes Monsanto's intellectual property and suddenly the farmer loses the right to do what farmers have always done.
Somehow, though, I'm guessing Monsanto will prove most unwilling to go around hand weeding "their" IP when it becomes a pest. However, it might be fair enough if the executives at Monsanto are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives doing exactly that.
This is important: there is no global shortage of food. People are hungry due to political and especially economic reasons.
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Correct. At the moment, we do not need GMO crops. What we need is for every country to have a stable, functioning government that cares about the well being of it's citizens and doesn't consider food a method of control. Guess which one we can give people in third world countries. Or would you like to see an invasion of the DRC to kill Mugabe and try to set up a decent government? You're right, there is no global shortage of food, many of the countries that need more food could easily produce it (the DRC for example has tons of very fertile farmland), and GMOs are not a silver bullet, but you know what, they're a start. You can change plants in a lab it resist bugs, or disease, or drought, or be more nutritious, but there is no way to change human nature. You can insert the gene for beta carotene into rice but you can't insert compassion into an evil regime. So until they do fix their governments, we have to do what we can for the people who are starving now, and that includes GMOs.
Uhhhhh - "absorb" the genes? I'm no geneticist - in fact, I didn't even LIKE high school biology. But, I know that living organisms don't just "absorb" DNA. Digesting doesn't count as absorption.
The plants have been cross bred, and the resulting seedlings carry the gene.
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Give this shit 10 years and we end up with complete mono-cultures of our most important food plants. And then, let one epidemic destroy the whole corn or wheat harvest of North America... Fun times ahead.
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