Make Way For "Mutant" Crops As GM Foods Face Opposition

squiggleslash writes "The concerns, legitimate or otherwise, about genetically modified foods such as Monsanto's Round-up Ready soy-beans, may be causing unintended consequences: Monsanto's rivals such as BASF are selling 'naturally' mutated seeds where extreme exposure to ultra-violet is used to increase the rate of mutations in seeds, a process called mutagenesis. These seeds end up with many of the same properties, such as herbicide resistance, as GM seeds, but inevitably end up with other, uncontrolled, mutations too. The National Academy of Sciences warns that there's a much higher risk of unintentionally creating seeds that have active health risks through mutagenesis than by other means, including relatively controlled genetic engineering, presumably because of the blind indiscriminate nature of mutations caused by the process. But because mutagenesis is effectively an acceleration of the natural system of evolution, it's very difficult to regulate."

Comments

Hail to the uninformed

[Ubi_NL]

Is this a joke article? Please.
We've been using random mutagenesis for over 25 years now to improve seeds, and guess what, we improved our technology over time. Not only is the secondary mutation mitigated via thorough back-crossing, but these days technology moved that only the gene of interest is actually changed. Read some recent patents by Monsanto or Keygene for a clue. This article is fear mongering bullshit that would have had truth in it if it was written in 1975.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[ColdWetDog]

Well, there is another weird undercurrent here. OK, you can treat plants with mutagens, we get that. You get mutants. (MUTANTS!). Then they sell the irradiated seeds? Just that? Who does the selection (that's the hard part)? Who decides what is a better product - the shinier fruit or the ones are walking down the field?

Either you're right and this is some weird joke or their is something very much missing in TFA.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[Anonymous Coward]

Monsanto lies. A *lot*.

Despite the occasional nutjob giving a bad name to other protesters, Monsanto has been responsible for massive dioxin poisoning, the creation and misuse of Agent Orange in Vietnam, abusive oversales of fertilizers leading to Sahara desert expansion as the crop growth was unsustainable, ruiined watersheds, and left the ground bare for desert expansion, and have generally sold agricultural tools and products for maximum short term profit. Monsanto's safety research can no more be trusted than that of cigarette companies saying their wares are "scientifically proven safe". They've been caught lying far too

Oh, and we've been using "random mutagenesis" to improve crops for more like 25,000 if some of the very early paleontoligical research is correct about pre-historic farming. The dangers of this arise from typical Monsanto approaches: excessive speed of deployment, aggression of sales, and poor safety checks. The chances of even modest Monsanto *loves* their high yield monocultures: they make real profit for Monsanto, customers get locked into the single product line, and then are fiscally devastated if Monsanto raises prices and they can't compete. Targeted mutagenesis *will not help* with this, because the high yield crop line will come to dominate the market place, *again*, and be vulnerable to a specific rot, *again*. Look into the history of bananas, and the current corn blights decimating Monsanto's highest price GMO corn crop.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[countach]

If that's true, it only reinforces that the article makes a good point that its no different to genetic engineering. In fact, then it really is genetic engineering using a different technique and should be regulated the same way.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[DanOlner]

It's been around a lot longer than 25 years. Mutagenesis via irradiation's been with us since the 50s. For a rather silly example, have a read of this look at amateur grower involvement as well as the wikipedia article on atomic gardens. So yeah: very extremely not a new thing.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[squiggleslash]

Is this a joke response?

I ask because:

1. The article doesn't say the technology is new.
2. The article is about how the techology is being used as an end-run around bans and other restrictions on GM foods.
3. Claims that the technology has been improved hardly negate the notion that this is inherently a less safe technology than standard genetic engineering for the reasons outlined.
4. You're criticizing attacks on alternatives to GM foods, that are being introduced because of a nonsensical fear mongering campaign against GM foods, where those alternatives are objectively not as inherently safe as GM foods, as "fear mongering bullshit". Really? Seriously?

In your knee-jerk rush to defend mutagenesis you've decided to ignore what's being pointed out - that a mindless fear mongering campaign against GM is resulting in use of technologies that more closely fit the complaints made against GM food, you've ignored the article pretending it doesn't state facts that it clearly does, and you've failed to address any of the issues raised.

All because you want to attack critics of the use of mutagenesis (even though in this case we're talking about people who are criticizing its use as an alternative to GMO, not critics of its use overall) as "uninformed".

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[segedunum]

In what universe can you called suing farmers for cross-contamination and then locking farmers into having to buy seeds from Monsanto an ethical or sustainable business practice?

People see smoke all around and then start asking for evidence of the fire.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[segedunum]

2. The article is about how the techology is being used as an end-run around bans and other restrictions on GM foods.

4. You're criticizing attacks on alternatives to GM foods, that are being introduced because of a nonsensical fear mongering campaign against GM foods, where those alternatives are objectively not as inherently safe as GM foods, as "fear mongering bullshit". Really? Seriously?

Trying to separate GM food from the use of this technology is also a joke. The logical conclusion of the wide use of GM food is that you won't be able to grow anything without Monsanto. That is their business model. We also have no idea what the long-term effects would be of this level of trust in a handful of powerful companies nor what kind of crops we would get with this unfettered. You're faced with a future situation where even growing anything in your back garden could cease to be a viable alternative. People can call it scare mongering all they like, but we won't know until we're in that situation and if and when we are it will be too late. Allowing companies to control natural food production is inherently dangerous and unethical.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like proof that they lie.

http://www.monsanto.com/products/Pages/roundup-pro-concentrate.aspx

The active ingredient, glyphosate, has favorable environmental characteristics such as low volatility and binds tightly to soil.

http://www.cdms.net/LDat/mp8CC006.pdf

Dissipation Soil field :Half life 2-174days

That's some range there. But I guess since it "binds tightly to soil", it will not leach into ground water. Oh wait, it does. Maybe it just washes out and does not "bind tightly to soil" as claimed, which explains that massive, massive range.

Monsanto lies to make money. Their ROE lifetime is 20 years, and damn the rest because patents expire.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/08/monsantos-roundup-herbicide-soil-damage

hmm, so maybe not that good for stuff in the soil....

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[yndrd1984]

Who does the selection (that's the hard part)?

Breeders. That's an actual job title at many seed companies.

Who decides what is a better product - the shinier fruit or the ones are walking down the field?

Usually they pick a particular trait that they would like to develop, preferably one that's easy to test for. They measure plants in the field, measure their output, scan the resulting product with near-infrared spectroscopy or nuclear magnetic resonance scans to find composition, and even look at genetic markers. Then they ship the seed for the next generation to be planted somewhere warm to shorten the generation time. Monsanto and Syngenta have labs a short drive from where I live that do NIR, MR, and PCR/marker testing for breeders, and there are lots of small fields full of odd-looking plants around here.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[sjames]

If you don't want to be sued, you'd better grow something unrelated for a year of 4 first. Otherwise the contamination from the monsanto seed will make it look like you're a seed pirate. They're as bad as the RIAA.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[mopower70]

What other seed provider would this be and where will you go when they all do the same thing? I don't think you have the slightest clue how this works, do you?

You're clearly not a farmer. And asking "where will you go when they all do the same thing" is just baseless fear-mongering. My local Wendy's closed and now it's a McDonalds. "Oh noes! Where will I go when they all do the same thing! Gah! It's the end of Wendy's!"

Amishland Seeds
Annapolis Valley
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Burpee Seeds
Heritage Seed Company (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Diane’s Flower Seeds
Ed Hume Seeds
Fedco
Garden City Seeds
Heirlooms Evermore Seeds
Heirloom Seeds
Heirloom Organics
Horizon Herbs
Irish-Eyes
J.W.Jungs
Johnny’s Seeds
Landreth Seeds
Lake Valley Seeds
Livingston Seeds
Local Harvest
Mountain Rose Herbs
Organica Seed
Park Seeds
Pinetree
Sand Hill Preservation Center
Seeds of Change (Owned by Mars Inc.) But GMO Free.
Southern Exposure
Sustainable Seed Co
Territorial Seeds
Tiny Seeds
Uprising Seeds
Virtual Farm Seed Co
Wildseed Farms

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[ChromeAeonium]

Bingo. That right there is the point of articles like this. It isn't fear mongering, it is putting things into context. As it says in TFA:

The academy has warned that regulating genetically modified crops while giving a pass to mutant products isn’t scientifically justified.

I certainty don't fear mutagenic crops. Lots of good has come from it (seedless citrus anyone?) but it is hugely inconsistent to attack GE crops while these get a free pass. Then again, since the anti-GMO movement is basically the creationism of agriculture, they aren't in touch with science much anyway, so this issue is just par for the course.

Articles like this are sort of like talking about plant pesticides. Anti-GMO people love to cry up and down about GE crops producing their own insecticides, but strangely never give the background biology required to put that into context (for example, that being that all plants make toxins, such as solanine, psoralens, falcarinol, oxalic acid,and maysin that naturally occur in potatoes/tomatoes, celery, carrots, rhubarb, and corn, respectively). Articles like this give context that otherwise people might not get.

Re:Hail to the uninformed

[hairyfeet]

Sorry but"creationism of agriculture" flag on the play, bullshit on the field, 50 yard penalty.

You show ANY place where Farmer Brown has been able to cross breed fricking insects and fish into his crops? I'll buy your bullshit but until then GMOs are just that,bullshit. You have Monsanto (who seems to be in a race with Goldman Sachs on who can be the most like Wolfram & Hart) not only creating plants that frankly shouldn't even be considered plants as they have insect, animal, fish, God knows what else mixed in, but when their frankenstein shit contaminates natural crops they get to sue the shit out of the poor bastard whose crops were contaminated....bullshit.

So please don't try to feed us that "no different than crosbreeding" horseshit because I have yet to see anyplace in the entire history of farming where animal and insect were crossbred with plants by farmer Brown. And that isn't even addressing the elephant rotting in the corner which is how this shit seems to be able to contaminate everything from neighboring crops to weeds. Just wait until Roundup Ready ends up in the Kudzu and we'll see how much you like that crap.

The real risk

[Black Parrot]

is letting one corporation get a choke-hold on the world's food supply.

Re:The real risk

[ShanghaiBill]

is letting one corporation get a choke-hold on the world's food supply.

"Roundup" herbicide is already off patent. The "Roundup-Ready" gene that infers resistance goes off patent in 2015. Most BT corn patents have been invalidated.

Re:The real risk

[__aaltlg1547]

But because of irrational fear of GMOs, people are still going to die of malnutrition that could be prevented by growing and eating Golden Rice.

Not all transgenic crops are the same. It matters what genes you add or remove. You could identify that remove the genes that make the stuff that people are allergic to in peanuts and remove them.

That's not the same as adding pesticides to the genome. Those are toxic to other organisms at low levels and could potentially become toxic to at least some people at some levels, or with long term exposure. The foods we eat are already loaded with naturally occurring pesticides that our metabolisms have adapted to tolerate.

That aside, we certainly haven't fully explored the natural and cultivated genomes of the species we eat. There's still lots of room for simple breeding methods to improve yield, growing environment tolerance (e.g. drought and salt tolerance) and pest resistance of crops. And there may be problems coordinating that with GMOs. If the developer picked the wrong seed stock to modify in the first place, you can have a GMO crop that's inferior in many regards to available varieties and the introduction of the new gene may inadvertently affect expression of genes that create desired characteristics.

"There is also at least a chance

[rmdingler]

...that one of the "other, uncontrolled, mutations" turns out to be a cure for something." From the Roundup-resistant strawman.

Re:"There is also at least a chance

[DavidClarkeHR]

...that one of the "other, uncontrolled, mutations" turns out to be a cure for something." From the Roundup-resistant strawman.

My bet is on cure for hunger. Though, solving the problem of not enough money flowing from the poor to the rich might accidentally happen, too.

Monsanto Generated FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like an add for Monsanto and FUD against their competitors. Notice how Monsanto's brand name is mentioned, but not those of their competitor's products brand names.

Re:Monsanto Generated FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. GM was also mentioned, but they didn't talk about their cars!

Re:Earth's last words.

[Anonymous Coward]

If history is a guide then it could evolve into a sentient animal that invents the internet and posts uninformed comments based on 1950s horror movies.

Errrrmm

[countach]

If this is so "natural", they won't be patenting the result.... RIGHT????

every 5 years

[superwiz]

This needs to mentioned every 5 years since most people don't realize how Europe works. The main political force in the European Union is France. The main political force in France is the french farmers. French take industrial competition to be a state affair. They do so as a matter of fact. The French industry is far behind the US industry as far as genetic engineering. This puts French farmers at a market-place disadvantage. This is the sole driving reason behind all European anti-genetic engineering propaganda. Everything else is excuses. Are there occasional problems with some ge crops? Sure. Just like there are bugs in programs. They get fixed. It's not a disaster. It's a nuisance.

Re:They are both GM, mutagenesis and transgenesis

[gregor-e]

Dude, you need some medication or something. You seem to think the DNA was writ by the immortal hand of god and is therefore sacrosanct. It ain't. Mutation is natural. DNA is thermodynamically unstable. The mechanisms by which DNA is replicated induces errors. Each of us has a dozen or so mutations to our own DNA. Every organism is constantly undergoing mutation. It is possible, though very tedious, to simply use selective breeding and wait for nature to provide the qualities we seek, whether it is increased shelf-life or Roundup resistance. All that adding radiation or mutagenic chemicals does is speed up the clock to give us these desirable mutations, (along with thousands of useless mutations), faster. All that genetic engineering does is give us the exact changes we want more or less immediately.

Re:They are both GM, mutagenesis and transgenesis

[ColdWetDog]

How DARE you insult His Noodliness so! He is Perfect!

You will be riven through his Colander of Might and reduced to bare semolina!

Re:Further proof that anti-GMO is all about the mo

[dargaud]

"Organic agriculture", or as our grandparents called it: "agriculture".

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I am embarrassed that so many people have opinions on this and so few have spent even 10 minutes researching both sides of this subject. I would not be surprised if there wasn't a single person on here is actually a farmer. The fact is that decrying GMO foods is a luxury of those who live in first world countries and have food. This ignorence and the fear caused by it doesn't hurt anyone but the people who need help the most, those without food. The world needs food and it needs better ways of growing that food. Mankind has been actively modifying the genetics of plants since we started cultivating land to grow food. Nature has been doing it for even longer then man. Everything you eat has been genetically modified through selection and breeding. Have you ever seen what the banana looked like before man modified its genetics though selective breeding and cultivation? http://www.bypassfanpages.com/2010/04/what-the-banana-looked-like-before-humans-started-selective-breeding/ nature can only get us so far on it's own. That is why we have brains and opposable thumbs, to improve the world around us. If you don't like the way Monsanto does business or creates products then get off your ass and develop an open source alternative to their products. Nobody is stopping anyone from developing a better system or product and sharing it with the world. You could be the worlds hero for solving hunger and be filthy rich. If you are just complaining and not working hard to present a real viable alternative for the whole world then you are wasting oxygen that could be used for people willing to actually do something.

GM isn't precise

[ljw1004]

They talk about genetic "engineering" as if it's a precise technical operation. But my understanding is that the kind of "engineering" done is to get a plasmid with some gene and blast it randomly at the plant. Don't know how it will land, don't know where, don't know how it will be expressed. So you then grow lots of plants with this randomly inserted genetic sequence and test whether any of the plants end up having the behavior you desire and no apparent behaviors that you don't want.

"Engineering" always seemed a deliberately misleading word.

That said, I totally buy what the article said from the NAS, that the health risks from blasting genes are low, and the health risks from UV radiation to create random mutations is low.

The article didn't at all address the environmental risks of over farming due to non-enhanced crops vs the environmental risks of irradiated vs gene-inserted crops. And didn't mention any economic risks with monopolies or IP ownership of seeds themselves.

Addressing solely "health" risks at point of consumption is also deliberately misleading.

Re:Further proof that anti-GMO is all about the mo

[yndrd1984]

it has been found that the yield of GMO crops is not better then that of classical crops

And why would it be better? The purpose of most GMOs is to lower input costs - fewer herbicides and pesticides, no need to till, etc.

That's like ignoring fuel efficiency when comparing cars - "Same top speed, so it's not any better!".

MOD parent UP Re:Hail to the uninformed

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yes, one farmer deliberately selected only Monsanto seed that blew onto his land and grew exclusively that, but that's the only time anyone ever got sued. If Monsanto ever sued someone for true accidental contamination it would be cutting their own throat.

Re:Monsanto belivers riddle me this

[the eric conspiracy]

> However if you do this there is no longer any incentive to keep crops from not being sprayed arbitrarily to save time/money.

That would be true if RoundUp was free. It isn't. Spraying with RoundUp is expensive both in terms of labor and cost of materials, so there definitely is an incentive to minimize its use.

There is also the issue of relative toxicity. RoundUp is the least toxic herbicide to mammals known. Other large scale farming practices require use of much more toxic practices.

NIH Tox comments re: Glyphosate:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10854122

Also please note - RoundUp is a trade name for an off-patent herbicide. The generic name is glyphosate, and most of the production of glyphosate is done by Chinese generic manufacturers.

> How the hell can you just blanket assume all GMOs are safe all strains regardless of the details of each strain and regardless of studies produced before the introduction of subsequent strains?

Nobody says all GMOs are safe. Heck, all sorts of natural plants are dangerous under various circumstances. Look up Castor beans. Also please note pretty much any artifact of technology is unsafe under some circumstance or another. If we insisted on complete safety for everything before adopting it we'd have banned fire due to its obvious dangers and still be living in unheated caves eating our food raw.

Life is a matter of balancing risks. Do the well-established science on the GMO plant you plan to introduce and you will get a good idea of whether or not you can tolerate the risk.

Health concern and IP

[manu0601]

While I am happy to side with people concerned with health concerns about GM, the biggest issue for me is that those people claim to enforce IP rights on what feeds humanity.

There is also the dissemination problem. Experimenting GM in outdoor fields is not responsible research, since nobody know what will happen with dissemination

Re:Monsanto belivers riddle me this

[WaffleMonster]

That would be true if RoundUp was free. It isn't. Spraying with RoundUp is expensive both in terms of labor and cost of materials, so there definitely is an incentive to minimize its use.

Whether roundup is free is not at issue. The issue is the cost difference in relation to additional time needed to do a suitable job missing spraying crops with roundup had crop not been "roundup ready"?

What after all is the market incentive for roundup ready crops if not reduction of labor cost?

There is also the issue of relative toxicity. RoundUp is the least toxic herbicide to mammals known. Other large scale farming practices require use of much more toxic practices.

The issue I raised is limited to the real world implication of crops that can now tolerate more roundup than they could in the past thanks to genetic manipulation. I do not wish to compare other solutions unless it is somehow relevant to the original question.

NIH Tox comments re: Glyphosate:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10854122

So why the danger Will Robinson warning label on bottles of roundup from home depot if it is so safe? Assume I'm a complete moron... I am unable to parse or imagine a way by which both statements can concurrently be true.

Also please note - RoundUp is a trade name for an off-patent herbicide. The generic name is glyphosate, and most of the production of glyphosate is done by Chinese generic manufacturers.

Alright I feel smarter now.

Nobody says all GMOs are safe.

Unfortunately this is a claim I have seen made many times. I would hope all would agree it not to be defensible.

So here we are.

[Ol Olsoc]

In as much as we do not necessarily know if a plant has mutated, either through mutagenisis, natural exposure to UV light, or other mutagens, and even random mutations, which alter the food.

It is critical that humans not consume mutated or otherwise genetically modified plants. These might be harmful

It is likewise critical that absolutely no mutant or modified plant meke it into the food chain or breed with natural unmodified - and therefore safe foods.

Therefore we hereby declare that no further modications of foodstuffs are allowed, either through artificial or Pseudo natural means, and all foodstuffs must be extensively tested to ensure that no mutations, modifications or evolvements take place.

All foodstuffs must be genome mapped as soon as possible, and then declared as the standard.

The importance of this testing and the results ares of such importance that any food that does not conform to the standard genome mapping must be immediately destroyed.

We must rid the world of the scourge of modified food of any sort. Only then will the human race be safe from any non-standard food.

We have formed an army to ensure compliance and the safety of the human race - the Eradicorps.

Re:Further proof that anti-GMO is all about the mo

[ChromeAeonium]

I'm not sure why you're being modded flamebait, it's true. Look, for example, who was funding Prop 37. People out there know they can make money by creating and playing off fears, and that's exactly what the organic movement does. They want people to look at food and wonder if feeding it to their kids will make them sick, so that they'll pay extra for their 'better' and 'safe' foods. There's also organizations like Greenpeace who sell fear for donation money; why do you think Golden Rice, which could save thousands of lives, is such a high priority for them? Why do you think they, specifically, targeted and destroyed CSIRO's low GI wheat research field, which, if it works (and since Greenpeace destroyed the research we don't know that it does) could produce diabetic friendly bread with a direct benefit to consumers? Sure, some people might have to die, but Greenpeace & other professional activists and the organic industry have to keep that money rolling in...of course, Monsanto is the evil greedy one.