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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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: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

[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!

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.

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.