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Activists Destroy Scientific GMO Experiment
Freggy writes "In Belgium, a group of activists calling themselves the Field Liberation Movement has destroyed a field which was being used for a scientific experiment with genetically modified potatoes. In spite of the presence of 60 police officers protecting the field, activists succeeded pulling out the plants and sprayed insecticides over them, ruining the experiment. The goal of the experiment was to test potato plants which are genetically modified to be resistant to potato blight. It's a sad day for the freedom of scientific research."
Destroying a potato field... WHAT'S NEXT??? This is just more evidence of how badly we need the Patriot Act.
They sprayed herbicide, not insecticide.
Open-field testing of GM plants is an inconceivably bad idea. Fifty cops can't stop cross-pollination with unmodified crops.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
It's a sad day for the freedom of scientific research.
Well, considering what has already happened with the round-up ready stuff and all this Monsanto crap, it might be a sad day for scientific research, but it's a good day for the freedom of eating natural veggies. Thanks, but no thanks, we don't want your GMO anymore, we saw what it does. If you want to do research, feel free to do it IN THE LABS, but absolutely NOT IN THE WILD.
I think the submitter of this article is a little unclear on the concept of what companies like Monsanto are trying to do, they are trying to control the food supply, to get a "piece of the action" like a Mafia every time you take a bite of food, and no one who doesn't pay them will have food. They are evil, and this little incident is nothing compared to what should be done to those parasites on humanity. Think of Monsanto and their ilk as the MIAA/RIAA of food.
Monsanto is all that anyone needs to say these days to show what is most wrong with GM foods. I'm sure all sorts of amazing and magical things can come of GM foods research. But when it is used as a weapon to destroy people and to control something as vital as food for humanity for profit, I have to say NO MORE GM FOOD. Once the problem of commercial exploitation is resolved, then let's revisit the many potential benefits of GM foods.
And before anyone says "profits pay for the research" I will just say I don't care. Find another way that doesn't involve using the results to dominate and drive private farmers out of business and off their land.
I don't care for the tactics used here, and of course many researchers in this area really are just legitimately working on ways to increase food yields.
On the other hand, there really are plenty of rapacious Monsantos and wannabes out there, who have quite legitimately given the whole thing a bad name. So I do understand the backlash.
Honestly, they'd do a lot better to try and get genetic patents eliminated. That's what causes a great deal of the harm here, whereas those interested in altruism or a reasonable profit don't need them. Unfortunately, those aren't so easy to uproot as a potato.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Thanks, but no thanks, we don't want your GMO anymore, we saw what it does.
Feed billions of people?
Odd that they don't simply spread their message by not buying these types of food. They find it acceptable to destroy property that does not belong to them, and which probably cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in lost time and research, just to force people to view things their way. I also found the article to be a bit funny regarding these GM crops being 'forced' onto local farmers.
If you don't want to eat that shit, don't buy it, or grow your own disease ridden organic food. If they prove that it's safe, then I have no issues with it. Since this crop was still being studied, apparently they weren't interested in it's safety, but rather in destroying it before that fact was determined.
It's also pretty sad when they announced their plans to do this and the police still failed to do much but slow them down. Pellet guns or water hoses would have seemed to be a good non-lethal solution here.
This research was happening independently of the industry, with public funding. Also, the research was about making the potatoes immune to a common disease, NOT making them immune to a specific brand of herbicide, so I fail to see how this could lead to a Monsanto situation. Part of the research was also to find out what the environmental impact of GMO is, and you will have to do a field test at some point to scientifically verify this.
The argument against GMO is that it's not just a natural selection process aided along by humans who see the end result of those genetics before choosing the next step, it's that we're taking genes and modifying them without knowing the exact changes made. We can make many permutations of the potato via GM, and have no idea what they'll end up as. However, if we go and use the traditional methods, we see exactly what we're getting, and know to a greater extent that there aren't unintended consequences.
Thanks, but no thanks, we don't want your GMO anymore, we saw what it does.
You don't speak for me. I want GMO crops.
It's funny how you environmentalists take the word of scientists regarding climate change and evolution but ignore scientists when it comes to nuclear power and GMO crops.
And at this time in my life, I want freedom to eat non-GMO food.
Then go resurrect some crops from fossils a few thousand years old. Genetic modification through selective breeding has been around for as long as agriculture. Direct modification is the same in kind if not in technique. i.e. instead of breeding Regular Tasty Potatoes in the same field as Hardier Smaller Potatoes for a few years and replanting the ones with the least blight, you instead figure out how the hardier variety are resistant, isolate the genetic sequence(s) responsible for this, splice them into your Tasty Potatoes, and breed those for a while to make sure nothing untoward happens. The crops destroyed were at that latter stage.
Personally, I'd rather eat 'GM food' that requires a lower number and quantity of pesticides than other crops of the same cost, especially when 'Organic' food requires a massive increased land-area and other resources to farm (and thus a higher direct sale price). Then there's the GM foods needed to prevent starvation in countries where regular crops just do not provide enough nourishment to sufficiently feed their populations.
This is separate from Monsanto et al's massively dickish moves in attempting to patent genetic sequences and impose ridiculous 'licensing terms' on crops.
You can't just "not buy it", or "not grow it". There's a big issue here in the states with Monsanto and their GM crops being cross pollinated into smaller, local farmers fields. Monsanto can go to court, then force the farmers to pay for the right to grow those crops that now contain their gene.
While not 100% relevant in and of itself, it emphasizes how easily cross pollination can occur, and how it's a huge problem to plant a GM crop anywhere near a non-GM crop and keep there from being cross contamination
If you file patents on any GM product that has the capacity to cross-contaminate natural organisms with your patented gene thereby giving you the opportunity to sue people for growing crop with your contaminated gene then you should be thrown in the same pool as Monsanto.
If engineering a plant that allows you to douse them with weedkillers killing all weeds while not affecting the plant and you tell the public there will be no repercussions from said practice then superweeds show up on the scene that are resistant to herbicides then you should be thrown in the same pool with Monsanto
If your internal documents show that you knew of many problems but you lied to the public then you should be thrown in the same pool as Monsanto
The question then becomes. What procedures are in place to absolutely 100% prevent these scenarios and many more from happening?
Destroy biodiversity. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42161
"Odd that they don't simply spread their message by not buying these types of food."
Problem being, at some point there may be no other type of food than these. I'm not 100% against GM foods of any sort but there is a real concern that any cross-breeding(which maybe some consider "forcing" it on them, I'm not sure about that though) will result in an entirely unsafe food supply and I can understand that seeing as how there's that corn that was supposed to be the answer to everything that they're now discovering retains its poisonous attributes even after being cooked. If you realize how much corn is in everything you eat, you realize why some might be concerned to act out like this. Again, I'm not saying it's right or that I agree with either side but there are valid concerns.
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
You can QQ about the moral implications of scientific progress all you like, but you won't be stopping it. Don't like stem cell research because it is an affront to God? Don't like genetics research because it isn't natural? Tough tiddly winks. It takes one researcher spending time on a subject, doing it right, and publishing their results. There is no stopping science.
If you are so terrified of a universe humans understand, shed the hypocrisy. Shut off your computer and all your lights. Refuse antibiotics next time you have a major infection. Reject models like the heliocentric solar system, gravity, electromagnetism, and all the rest.
Having a powerful model for genetics has the potential to outshine all the theories mentioned above in practical use for human life. It will doubtless be necessary if ever we get off our asses and go to the stars.
Uh, it's kinda important to test GM foods in realistic conditions, especially when testing "how will this grow in realistic conditions?". I'm sure they took plenty of sensible precautions, like "test it as thoroughly as possible in the lab to make sure it's not dangerous", and "keep it separate and distant from actual crops to prevent genetic transfer". Plus, unless they changed science without telling me, experimental products aren't sold as food after the experiment is over. These particular plants were never going to be eaten.
Plus, what does "Monsanto being evil money-grabbing bastards" have to do with foods not being safe (which seems to be your unstated concern - ignore if I'm picking up on the wrong subtext)? The only two GM foods I can find with actual safety concerns (both triggered allergic reactions) had those problems detected well before even field-study, and were subsequently stopped. I agree that Monsanto is an absolutely evil corporation that should be first against the wall when the revolution comes, but not because they're making and selling unsafe food.
You're a moron; it's a point that is relevant (to some degree) because the situation in the US would not exist if it were not so easy for GM and non-GM crops to cross pollinate. There's also a big difference between artificial selection and GM; we don't know all the consequences of genetically altering an organism, but we can basically see them when selecting over generations.
Apparently you haven't heard of things called hybrids. Have you ever eaten a blood orange? How about a grapefruit? Both of those exist because someone intentionally cross-fertilized fruit bearing plants (which for those of you who don't know is the process of inserting genes from one species of plant into another species of plant in order to create a third species of plant with characteristics from both parent species).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Selective pollenation and crossing is not GMO.
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
And how is this an insightful counter argument ?
Wheat ? Not really that good for you. At least there is nothing wrong with spelt.
Corn ? Natural corn, which exists in many different breeds, making them far less suceptible to a one-size-fits-all bug, would be quite preferrable. But Monsanto is indeed doing its worst to "fix" this, by fighting the proper crops where they exist.
Also, you totally overlook the basic problem. The wheat and corn from 50 years ago is NOT genetically modified in the modern sense of the word, and you know it. The problem with the current craze is that the changes are bigger and faster than before. And that companies make crops that fit their needs, not the needs of those who need to grow stuff. For example, and yes, this is real, they make crops that have weaknesses so that you need to buy more pesticides of the kind they sell. Letting a company be in charge of the raw material for your food is a very bad idea, because they think on a short term for profit basis, and do not care if they mess up the nutritional value of the food or otherwise make things worse for everyone around them.
I'd also like to point out that you have been eating GM plants your entire life. Wheat? Hundreds of years of selective growing of only the best stock. Its the same thing it's just been done on a farm instead of in a lab.
Do not spread diss-information.
These are not genetically modified, crops, they are artificially-sellected crops.
you environmentalists
You say that like there's just one group - I happen to support reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the use of safer nuclear reactor technologies, and the careful use of GMO crops. I'm against patenting GMO life. I'm against assuming all GMO plants are safe for consumption just because their progenitors were safe - that same protein that protects against potato blight may be toxic to more than just the bugs spreading it. On the other hand, it's more than likely less toxic than dumping insecticides on the plants.
There are plenty of people out there who don't simply define themselves as "environmentalists", but look at individual issues and see potential issues that should be mitigated against.
How arrogant is it of a person secure in their subsistence to say "No, we could save you from starvation with this plant, but I don't believe in this plant, so fuck you."
FanFictionRecs.net
I don't see anyone forcing anyone to buy anything. If the GMO crop is worth a premium, the farmers will pay a premium. If not, then not.
1) the total number of lawsuit Monsanto has files against farmers is in the low hundreds. (And most of these were for saving patented seeds to replant the next year. Which I still think is an abuse of intellectual property law, but has nothing to do with cross pollination).
2) Different plant species have different rates of outcrossing (mating with another plant instead of itself). A corn plant for example, will mate almost entirely with other corn plants and very little with itself. A tomato will mate almost entirely with itself.
3) Potato plants are at even less risk of outcrossing because they are propagated clonally. Potatoes from one year are cut up and planted in the ground to grow next year's crop and produce plants genetically identical to their single parent. No mating = no cross pollination.
In conclusion it seems likely you have not taken a course in biology since high school (which you likely slept through) and despite clearly feeling very passionate about the debate on genetic engineering, have not bothered to inform yourself on the issue, despite abundant and diverse sources of information.
No :-)
In my defence, painting protests as terrorism is all too common nowadays:
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
It seems you didn't hear about the story of that farmer, who unwillingly, had his field infected with GMO, because others around were using it (but not him). Then, enormously-wealthy Monsanto sued the poor farmer for using GMOs without buying the copyright they have on the patented seeds.
Another issue. In France, they don't produce GMO corn, or things stuffed with round-up, because you see, they care a bit for their health, and very strangely, believe that eating herbicide sprayed-so-much veggies might be harmful. But then, producers on the other side of the ocean use (and abuse) of round-up-ready Monsanto seeds, and of course, have better productivity, which leads to cheaper corn. Guess what! French can't compete with Americans, and of course, US thinks it's a WTO violation to ban GMO imports.
Now, on the supermarket, sure, nobody is forcing anyone to buy GMO products. But the issue is that we don't know what is made with GMO products. So even if we have that freedom, we can't exercise it. There was once some trials to put stickers on food that contained GMO, but the lobbies are too powerful, and it didn't work.
There are other examples like that. Hundreds of them. You think people have freedom of not using GMO in their crops? Think again, freedom not what big-seed company wants, and that's not what is happening in many places.
Now, let's take freedom and market appart. Do you think that, for food, the only think that counts is money? Isn't there is something called health that we should care about?
Selective breeding cannot create traits that do not already exist in the gene stock. When you insert a completely novel gene there's a much greater chance for unpredictable results.
GM crops are a good thing, but they shouldn't be treated just like selective breeding. They should undergo safety testing as rigorous as pharmaceuticals.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Europe != the rest of the world. Also your link there states that they don't label any GM feed used for animal production and GM proteins do show up in the animals that are fed the GM feed and those animal food products are sold to the public but not labeled with any warning about GMOs.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
If you had read the article (yes, I know, I know...) you would realize that many of the protesters are local farmers. So they probably already worked a few years for local farms. But please don't let facts interfere with your knee-jerk reaction.
Wait, which is it? Is the plant sterile, or is it cross-pollinating?
Obviously, you didn't read the whole story. The farmer indeed got accidental Monsanto seeds (that part is true). What happened later, however, is that he used a herbicide on his field and realized "uuuuuu, those plants are still alive" --> collected the seeds from those and used them the next year. That's why he lost the lawsuit - he consciously selected for Roundup resistant plants.
You are correct that "The wheat and corn from 50 years ago is NOT genetically modified in the modern sense of the word" however I believe the point the GP was making is that the changes made by artificial selection were equivalent to, if not greater than, those that are now being produced with genetic modification "in the modern sense of the word."
The genome of B73, a completely un-genetically modified variety of corn, was published back in 2009 and I've had my head buried in it ever since. I've seen broken genes, moved genes, genes missing the sequences that should control when and where they are turned on, even frankenstein genes assembled from the pieces of other genes. All these changes occurred naturally in individual corn plants and are found today in B73 as the result of either artificial or natural selection.
For example, and yes, this is real, they make crops that have weaknesses so that you need to buy more pesticides of the kind they sell.
Citation needed. I know there are GM crops resistant to certain herbicides, but in the absence of those herbicides they grow identically to their unmodified siblings. I don't even know how an effect like the one you describe could be produced. But if you can back it up I will certainly look into it.
I do not think many slashdotters would understand, that world over, resistance to bio engineered and gene modified plants is mostly due to business reasons.
Or the "Monsato" model.
Most GM food is owned by corporations.
They sell you seed, and you grow the plants.
Then you need to buy seed again the next year.... and so on.
So as local less hardy varieties vanish, the corporation can set its own prices.
Traditionally, farmers buy seed just once, and then keep reusing in normal circumstances.
GM model is trying to alter whats being done for many millenia.
Its more difficult than making old world studios embrace the internet.
So around all this, you have a whole slew of conspiracy theorists and wack jobs who basically add fuel to the fire.
So here is the opposition.
In countries where farmers are a powerful vote bank(eg India), govt mostly does the GM corp kicking here and there.
In the west, I guess, its the activists.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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Coincidently what we call a potato is a result of centuries of cross pollination. Technically you could say there were never really any non-GM potatoes, since cross-pollination is just an old technique for genetically modifying crops.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Ah, precisely WHAT "billions of people"?
Have a watch of "We Feed The World", by Erwin Wagenhofer.
Have a look at precisely what happens to all of this spectacular bounty of surplus food we could be using to feed starving people. Pay particular attention at 52:10, where Karl Otrok, Director of Production for Pioneer in Romania, explains how things REALLY are...
At little later, he explains things a bit more clearly...
After you get done with that, you can comment on the billions of farm subsidies the US and EU governments pay to industrial farmers, so they can undersell everyone else by two-thirds.
[End Of Line]
Bad day for scientific research? No. It's set back of limited duration.
Is GM food "bad"? Dunno, jury's still out on that and it really depends which camp you want to listen to.
Is the licensing and patenting of GM crops bad? Oh hell yes. The goal of "crop lock-in" is real, demonstrated and rather scary IMO.
Would this be a good time to discuss licensing or policies to halt this type of corporate behavior? Definitely. In fact it's so long overdue we may have passed the tipping point five years ago.
For your consideration:
Haitian rice
Monsanto Lawsuit / canola
Monsanto Lawsuit / soybeans
Patented disease
University gene patents
I think that this imbroglio underscores the need to limit or do away with gene patents, as there is little chance that the men in white coats (or the ones in black suits that pay them) will stop their tinkering, and I'm not sure that it needs to stop.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Well in Canada consumer groups wanted the government to require genetically modified foods to be labelled as such - so consumers could choose. The government refused. Why? Because people might be scared off and not buy it.
Part of me doesn't like the kind of mob action described in the summary but OTOH if governments are going to choose the well being of corporations over the rights of citizens to know what they are eating... it kind of seems like they are asking for this sort of thing to occur.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Odd that they don't simply spread their message by not buying these types of food.
You are absolutely right. And I support one hundred percent a total obligation for all foods to be precisely labelled with exactly what gen-manipulated foods are used in their production. But for some reason Monsanto and friends really don't like people being able to make that decision.
But actually what you are saying is that in a power struggle between food industry and ordinary people with no power, these ordinary people should only be allowed to use the weakest possible form of protest, while Monsanto can spend 100s of millions to buy politicians.
To those who haven't been paying attention to the world seed market, this may appear to be an appropriate response. Granted, they hardly did us any favors by taking this path, but their intentions were honorable. Don't Mod me until you have read the rest of this. I have references.
Genetically altered plants have been engineered in such a fashion that future generations of food bearing plants are *sterile* requiring you to *buy new seeds * every year. As in, You can't save a few ears of corn to re-plant next year. You have to rely on the corporation with the patent on the seed to allow you to buy more.
In some countries this is illegal, however precedence has been set where one filed of non-altered plants were rendered sterile by another field of steile-altered-plants and the victim with the non-sterile plants ( to start with ) was sued in court and *lost*.
We have grown accustomed to our freedoms being legislated away but this has dangerous implications on the sustainability our food supply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_use_restriction_technology
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/genetically-modified-plants.html
For the record, and Heirloom seed is a seed that is not genetically altered.
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Finding the magic crop to save the world is just another PR line like binging democracy, and the current real life use of GMO are as far from fulfilling that line as you can get.
It's likely that they're trying to protect the genetic purity of their own crops.
When a GM crop is created, it's patented. Natural pollination will contaminate the genetic purity of the natural crop. Eventually, the local farmers won't be able to keep seed for their own crops because they'll all be contaminated by the GM grown nearby. This has happened time and time again. Local farmers are raided and shut down because their crops have been contaminated and they're now infringing on the IP of some bio-tech firm.
Additionally, GMO toxins have been detected in the blood of fetuses, potentially effecting development. The jury is still out on the safety of GMO foods. God has had millions of years to work on this stuff, but we've been at it for only a few years and already a significant amount of commercially available food is GMO. What are the long term consequences? The bio-tech firms don't care what the consequences are...because they're making a buck.
So, for all those calling this "terrorism", you need to take your weenie hat off and man-up. I would liken a GM crop grown nearby to an uncontrolled wildfire. The local farmers who are protesting this are trying to protect their own crops.
"Lame" - Galaxar
then I trust the free market to make the right decision and choose the seed that is best for the food supply.
That, actually, is a mistake in an era of regulatory capture and corporatism. You think that only applies to the phone company and ISPs?
Screwmaster's This sentiment is correct. Monsanto, specifically, has been suing farms not using their seeds as well. Here's the details:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Goliath_and_David:_Monsanto's_Legal_Battles_against_Farmers
http://nelsonfarm.net/
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/26/eveningnews/main4048288.shtml
So much for a free market...
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
"Genetically altered plants have been engineered in such a fashion that future generations of food bearing plants are *sterile* requiring you to *buy new seeds * every year."
I thought that was proven to be a myth. And that Monsanto simply relies on contract law, mostly.
No Myth, and still moving forward:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Terminator_seed_controversy
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I don't think we need to be that harsh on the scientists. Maybe just having them clean up the field, promising not to play with GMO crops any more would be enough. Jail time seems a little extreme even for such reckless and arrogant behavior.
You are welcome on my lawn.