it is particularly sensitive to invasive organisms
Which has what, exactly, to do with new varieties. Adding a new gene into a species doesn't make it a new species. Hell, in the case of the Rainbow papaya, the PRSV-CP gene inserted isn't even expressed in the mature tissues of the plant.
"If there is even a small chance it is bad, let's not do it."
That's a rather terrible risk assessment method for all sorts of reasons. There's always a small chance that something could go wrong, with anything. That philosophy lets you do nothing. There would no longer be a papaya industry on the Big Island if they listened to that nonsense.
that actually want to know if GMO ingredients are used
Corn (field & sweet corns, not popping corns), soy, canola, cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa, summer squash (fresh only), papaya (Hawaiian only). If it does not specifically say otherwise or is not labeled organic, and it is an item in the above list, it is GE. In just a few seconds, you have learned how to tell if you are eating a GE crop. If it is about the 'right to know' why are they trying to slap a label on things instead of simply trying to educate people? Rhetorical question, the answer is because the organic industry is trying to legislate marketing and scare people into buying their products. If people can't be bothered learn just eight species, they clearly don't care that much do they? And you don't get to write a law just because you're too lazy to educate yourself.
That's an asinine way to put it. I'm sure if someone lobbied to require that organic food be labeled as 'grown in feces' the organic industry would fight against that, and rightfully so. Maybe if the anti-GE movement hadn't spent the past two decades lying about GMOs things would be different, but now defending yourself against fearmongers is evidence that something nefarious is going on? Way to victim blame. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Furthermore, the fight was over mandatory labeling, not voluntary. That's a very big detail you chose to conveniently ignore. In addition, this law also hit the University of Hawai'i's Rainbow papaya, so chew on that. Also, even if Monsanto were so evil, that doesn't justify hurting the farmers. You probably used gasoline produced by a fairly nasty company today, maybe you should be shackled for their crimes. Of course, that makes no sense, but you support punishing the farmers by the same logic?
I work in plant science, and I sure would. The anti-GMO movement is to agriculture and plant science what the anti-vaxxers are to medicine and immunology, climate change denialists are to climate science, and creationists are to evolutionary biology and biology in general. The vast majority of their arguments, even the ones that initially sound like they make sense (for example, the 'superweed' thing, or non-scientific issues like labeling), range from very weak and only coherent provided you hold a low level of botanical/agricultural knowledge to downright false (ex. the often quoted Séralini study). I so often hear otherwise rational people repeat anti-GE arguments because the opposition continues to adapt without actually changing their stance, sort of like how the anti-vaxxers started out focusing on thimerosal, then too-many-too-soon, ect. First opposition to GMOs is about health, then the environment, then biodiversity, then corporations, then labeling, then back to health every time you show how the concern is either misplaced or outright false. This is an movement that has so much misinformation, ignorance, and ideology mixed up into it, and ti is wrong in many ways.
And I'm not saying there is no nuance on the topic, I'm not, there is, there are legitimate issues here, but to say that gives the anti-GE movement any credibility is like taking the very real controversy over the evolutionary history of the gnetophytes as evidence that creationism has some merit.
The initial ball-rollers were the taro farmers, and for entirely different (and IMO legitimate) reasons. There are a lot of small independent family (actually a family, not just a big conglomerate owned by a family) taro farmers. With taro (it's like a big potato), much of the planting is done by cutting of the top of the corm (the potato part) and replanting it. They saw what Monsanto was doing with not allowing corn farmers to save seed, and were concerned that if the taro market went to GMO the same thing would happen with taro, where farmers would be entirely dependent on Monsanto and pretty much unable to resist or remain independent.
That whole 'save the kalo' thing was driven a lot by religion and ignorance. There was a lot of vitriol because of patented taro varieties that the UH developed. However, they patented those varieties for a damned good reason: when they developed the macadamia varieties that are now used worldwide, they did not patent them, and as a result, the trees found themselves right away in South Africa and Australia where labor costs are cheaper, then sold back into the US, thus hurting the Hawaiian industry. The researchers who worked with the taro did not want that to happen again. There were also people getting pissy about new varieties making bad poi, which is a dumb thing to get angry about because that is not the taro breeder's fault that farmers try new taro huli. Yeah, some were mad about the patents, but no one is forcing anyone to use patented huli!
The GMO thing was absolutely absurd, especially considering that the University of Hawai'i allows replanting of transgenic papaya. I have a strong suspicion that the anti-GE groups had a strong hand to play in the GMO taro fiasco, and furthermore, not all taro growers supported that ban. The fact is, disease wiped out taro in other islands, like Samoa. The southern leaf blight and taro blight that the GE taro were engineered to be resistant to were not as bad as what Samoa had, but if the Alomae-Bobone Virus Complex comes to Hawai'i kiss your poi goodbye. And there was even one kupuna who said they would rather the taro die out than see it be GMO. Such concern for ol' Haloa! And of course there were a lot of ignorant moke who just wanted to pound their chests at the haoles, that hullabaloo was part of it too.
There is already a ban on genetically engineered taro in Hawai'i. The justification was that it was religiously offensive to (some) Native Hawaiians (who had been used as tools by anti-GE groups, IMO). How that one managed to become law is baffling, but considering that region is a good enough reason to pass an anti-GE law in Hawai'i, this law passing was not much surprise. Take note, by the way, that the taro research was being done by the University of Hawai'i, also known as not Monsanto. That's right, university research is being stiffed over religion. How is there no outrage over this?
This new law may be overturned however. The farmers do not like it, at least, the ones who aren't peddling overpriced organic food anyway...conveniently, those guys seem okay with legislating away the competition. It is not fair, hurts local agriculture on the Big Island (read the bill,expanding a farm if you use biotechnology comes with a $1000 a day fine, which will not help food security on the island). This whole thing is just wrong. We should be encouraging agriculture, and encouraging technology, not hurting something good and ignoring the real issues that legitimately are cause for concern, like land costs.
Ok, then explain the thugs who tried to destroy the GE wheat trial at Rothamsted, or the ones who did destroy the GE potatoes at the University of Leeds.
The anti-Monsanto is just a convenient attempt to justify anti-science bullshit (and even that card is factually weak). That's why there's opposition to Golden Rice, the Rainbow papaya, The Arctic apple, and every other non-Monsanto GMO. If it was just about Monsanto, that wouldn't happen, but it does.
Wrong. As the AC above points out, there are hundreds of studies on GE crops, and no plausible mechanism as to why they would be inherently dangerous. Quit spreading misinformation.
I don't think it's too much to allow people to have labeling to then be able to make informed choices about whether they want to be a part of this huge un-controlled human trial.
See above. Labeling is at this point about as justified as mandatory labels for religious dietary choices. It singles out one particular aspect of agriculture without justification (ever heard anyone demand any other crop improvement method be labeled? That's because the organic industry isn't selling alternatives to them) and ignores just how easily those who care can avoid GE crops with a little bit of educations. What you are proposing would be like demanding mandatory labels on WiFi routers saying 'emits radiation.' It's not wrong, but it is damned misleading to those without basic knowledge of WiFi, and unnecessary to those who do.
Not to the small farmers who grow papaya or corn for the Big Island dairy industry though, which they will have to pay if they wish to grow their crop in a 'non-traditional' location, as per the bill.
Nope, the same people opposing every other GE crops also oppose the Rainbow papaya. The anti-GE people don't care that the papayas were developed by the university.
And one more thing I almost forgot: instead of using your money to support farming organically, which is basically what happens when you apply the appeal to nature fallacy to agriculture, instead you should support biodiverse underutilized crop species. That is what really needs financial support. When you find them, buy things like jícama, sunchoke, prickly pear, persimmon, lychee, pepino, kiwano, taro, quinoa, amaranth, ect. Biodiversity is a critical and commonly neglected aspect of agriculture. If you want to support something meaningful, support that.
It isn't unreasonable to be opposed to monopoly. I doubt you will find many academic scientists who would disagree with that. It doesn't follow that you should oppose GE crops for that reason though. First off, there is not really a monopoly: there's Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer Cropscience, Pioneer Hi-Bred (DuPont), BASF, Dow Agrosciences, and various smaller companies. And of course, nothing stops farmers from doing the old fashioned saving of heirloom seed. In fact, if you look at the USDA's page on approved GE crops you can see more than just Monsanto, including a small company in Canada trying to get approval for a consumer oriented trait and a university developed crop, the Rainbow papaya developed by the University of Hawai'i (unfortunately, it is the only currently approved university developed crop, because unfortunately most university scientists do not have the funds to get a GE crop through the over strict approval process, which effectively favors large companies).
Another thing, when you buy organic, who do you think sells those farmers the seed? Monsanto, ect. sell more than just GE seed you know. You may very well be paying extra for more Monsanto seed.
except that they tend to be proprietary
For one thing, there's more than just GE crops that are patented. Ever had a pluot? Patented. Ever had a Honeycrisp apple? Formerly patented, until the patent expired. Neither of those are genetically engineered. Farmers who grow those things are willing to pay extra for those plants because then they can get an advantage out of them, no different than any other investment, and the people who develop those plants patent them so that they can make further investments, like the pluerry or SnowSweet apple (which is my number one favorite apple and would recommend anyone with a back yard buy a plant since the apples aren't commercially available, so I'm rather glad the apple breeding program that developed it was able to support itself on the patent royalties from Honeycrisp).
I don't really see the problem with plant patents. Developer gets exclusive control over the thing they developed for a period of time and hopefully makes enough money to reinvest it, then the patent expires so everyone can use the thing freely, like what happened with the Honeycrisp apple. Isn't that how the system is supposed to work? Unlike the copyright system where things last the life of the universe plus five years, I think this looks pretty good.
Prove that microwave heated food isn't dangerous. Microwaves are totally different than simple heated air that people have been using for centuries, which heats food more slowly. Totally different results too; your pizza will be all mushy and not crisp when it is made in a microwave. You couldn't do that with an oven. And you have no idea what alterations you are making to the food. It isn't like anyone has ever studied it, and if they have, Big Microwave has silenced them.
But you are right, the point I made was rather stupid. Saying that all differences are meaningful is often an oversimplification of an issue.
It's about the fact that a very significant portion of the people WANT GMO labeling.
A very significant portion, when asked, also want a Lamborghini. What's your point? If people really want GE labeling, there are already things like the Non-GMO project. Have at it. But wait, those products don't have a majority market share, almost as if most people don't actually care, and the push for labeling is coming form organic groups and ideologically opposed groups trying to legislate their marketing. I want organic products to clearly start 'grown in poop.' Hey, why are they hiding that fact by not labeling it, hmm? That works both ways.
Who is Monsanto to decide we can't know true facts about the things we put in our bodies???
The information is freely available, just because you are too lazy to do a five second Google search to find it does not mean it should be labeled. You are creating a controversy where none exists.
you don't know that all present and future GMO products are not unsafe in ways people fear. I
You are demanding I prove a negative? You have no idea how science actually works do you?
Yeah, I'd have a lot less problem with GM foods, if they weren't leading to monopolization of the food provision chain by one or a very few companies.
Then you should advocate for less restrictions of GE crops. Many in academia would love to be able to release new GE lines of crops, but cannot because the high regulatory burden favors large companies like Monsanto. Ironically, people who are ideologically opposed to GE crops and demand greater regulation are shielding Monsanto from competition.
Then why has Monsanto/Dow not released their 2,4-D and dicamba tolerant crops? Why did it take so long to release DroughtGard? What you are saying is the exact opposite of true; the testing is too stringent, preventing university research from seeing fruition (except fo the University of Hawai'i's Rainbow papaya).
There is this get out jail free card they use to legally avoid testing called substantial equivalence [wikipedia.org] - the theory is that if you are just mixing genes from two different kinds of food, then its all good.
No, substantial equivalence says if two things are functionally the same you can treat the like it. So, if a corn is a corn except it has a cspB in it, and if this protein is shown to be treated by the body no differently than the rest of the proteins produced by the plant, and the corn has no other meaningful differences, then it is treated the same as any other corn. You are completely misrepresenting the concept.
So yeah, there is no known mechanism because no one is looking for one.
No, there is no known mechanism because there's no known mechanism. And by the way, why is it that you claims no one is looking for any mechanism? Another ridiculous Monsanto conspiracy about how everyone in plant & agricultural science are evil/paid off? We eat the same food you do you know, and if there were any evidence that it were dangerous, it is pretty insulting to say that every plant scientist, except for a few crackpots like Séralini, would turn a blind eye to it. And why is it that if you said the same thing about climate change, evolution, wifi, or vaccines, then you would be recognized as very silly, but somehow when you say the same thing about GE crops it is insightful?
Untested, unproven, with insufficient research on safety.
Ignoring allthis perhaps. Hey, if they are so untested, why is it that all those things currently awaiting approval listed on the APHIS site are not yet on the market? Is it our of Monsanto's altruistic concern? And why can't university labs muster up the funding to jump past the regulatory hurdles? Which is it, not tested, or Monsanto cares?
Also, GM crops have thus far failed to deliver on the higher yield claims
Note how they specify 'in the United States' with the implication that GE crops were supposed to improve yields. You do realize there is more to agriculture than yield, yes? If you are already tilling and spraying insecticides/herbicides, as is the case in developed countries, do you honestly expect insect resistant and herbicide tolerant crops to improve yields? Of course not, though if you talk to a farmer about the Round-Up/LibertyLink systems, they still prefer it (hell, there's even some evidence to indicate that sometimes they have lower yield in those systems, but railing on that makes the silly assumption that agriculture can be measured with a single number). If the UCS's report is news to you than you are pretty uninformed.
Naturally of course, they conveniently ignore the Rainbow papaya that saved the Hawaiian papaya industry, which should undeniably demonstrate that GE crops can serve a purpose for yield gains, even if we assume that preventing insect damage, by some curiously unexplained phenomenon, does not reduce losses.
As for your criticisms, first off, you must be looking at a different graph that I am, second fails to point out anything of interest, and third your criticism is basically 'we might lose the benefits already provided by GE crops therefore GE crops are bad' which is pretty silly, especially considering that not all herbicides are the same, a fact Benbrook consistently ignores (sort of like a liter of wine has more mass than a line of cocaine but less impact, which is the true measure of a substance), that same scenario, and similar cases with respect to pests and pathogens, has happened with numerous crops in the past, yet it is only with GE crops that people direct criticism for basic issues of agriculture.
And I forgot to add that one of the reason people in developing countries have so many kids is because they need them. Improve their social conditions, and that need goes away. If you give people food, they will have more kids yes, but only in the short term. Letting people starve, besides being inhumane, is doesn't even address any issue with overpopulation (which has been predicted to kill us all for quite some time now...the population bomb as the consistency of every other end of the world).
I don't think you know what a free market is. There is already non-GE options out there. In a free market, people will chose them if they really want ot. In a less free market, those selling the non-GE crops will have the government enforce what amounts scare labels (at least after years of baseless fearmongering anyway) on competitors' products.
what's the deal with giving us a label to know if it is GMO or not
Demonizing a beneficial technology is a good one. Furthermore, you could say that about a lot of things. What's the harm in knowing if food is Haram? Maybe we should have mandatory labeling for Islamic dietary laws? But of course, that would be silly. Same here. There's lots of things that could be labeled on food, but unless something is has a good reason beyond 'I want it' (like allergens or calories, for instance) then I don't see your legal grounds for mandatory labeling. Besides, it is pretty easy to tell if something is GE or not with a little education for those who really care. There are only eight food crops that are actually genetically engineered, and if you can't take a few minutes to educate yourself, that's your own lazy problem.
No, it's about being open and honest about what goes into your food.
Okay, what gets labeled? Personally, I want to know if my peanuts have genes for nematode resistance bred in from other Arachis species? Or maybe what resistance gene (Ph-3, Ph-5, ect) is in my tomato. Maybe I'd like to know what rootstock my pear was grafted onto. I'd also like to know if my carrot was the result of a doubled haploid hybrid. Tell me what line of wheat is in my bread, and if it is the result of a mutation breeding line. Is my banana the result of tissue culture? What bud sport of apple am I eating?
Here's another thing to think about: GE corn has higher levels of fungal toxin. If Monsanto, in the name of consumer education, lobbied for non-GE corn labeled as having increased mycotoxins, would you think them scummy? What if they pushed for a clear label on organic food if I was grown in manure? Now reverse that, and when organic producers and organization try to push labels on things they conveniently sell the alternative to, then suddenly it is out of their own benevolence? Bollocks to that.
Why is no one advocating those? I'll tell you why. You could label all sorts of things about food, but they are not required because that is as meaningless as labeling the day of harvest. You want to know if something is GE or not; it is easy, corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, papaya, summer squash. If it has them, with some nuance, and isn't organic, it is likely GE. With a little education, no labels needed, so why push for them? Why not just do voluntary labeling for those who care, like Kosher and Halal? Because the organic companies funding those initiatives are looking to get government mandated marketing, that's why. There is a reason they are pushing for labeling and not education (although their versions of education are about as scientific as creationism). There is a reason they are singling out a single thing and not giving any of the background information to understand the significance of that thing.
That was pretty damn insidious by Pro-GMO Big Ag.
Well, considering that the anti-GMO guys tried to manipulate the law to benefit their own organic businesses, I'd say there's more than enough anger to go around. Sure, I'm mad at Monsanto too, but organic producers tried to irrationally demonize a beneficial technology that could be saving lives simply for their won profit, and that's way worse than Monsanto's anti-prop 37 campaign.
They come out of the woodwork any time the letters "G" "M" and "O" appear together in a story.
Maybe there's actually people in plant biology here who get ticked at all the misinformation people are spreading about the field? Maybe for some people here this stuff is more than some story to yammer about on the internet.
Initial indications are of harm from glyphosate residues and retained b.t. toxin, at least in pregnant women in the latter case.
You are referring to this study. That study doesn't even try to attempt to find out where the Bt they claim to detected came from. It could have been from organic food, which also uses Bt. Of course, since the levels of Bt they found were below the detection limit of the test they used, among other flaws, I'm not convinced they found anything but an artifact. We do know the effects, at least for the commercially approved crops, and at least as well as can be know without proving a negative. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean people won't still spread misinformation and publish the occasional shoddy paper though.
Slashdot Mirror
it is particularly sensitive to invasive organisms
Which has what, exactly, to do with new varieties. Adding a new gene into a species doesn't make it a new species. Hell, in the case of the Rainbow papaya, the PRSV-CP gene inserted isn't even expressed in the mature tissues of the plant.
"If there is even a small chance it is bad, let's not do it."
That's a rather terrible risk assessment method for all sorts of reasons. There's always a small chance that something could go wrong, with anything. That philosophy lets you do nothing. There would no longer be a papaya industry on the Big Island if they listened to that nonsense.
that actually want to know if GMO ingredients are used
Corn (field & sweet corns, not popping corns), soy, canola, cotton, sugar beet, alfalfa, summer squash (fresh only), papaya (Hawaiian only). If it does not specifically say otherwise or is not labeled organic, and it is an item in the above list, it is GE. In just a few seconds, you have learned how to tell if you are eating a GE crop. If it is about the 'right to know' why are they trying to slap a label on things instead of simply trying to educate people? Rhetorical question, the answer is because the organic industry is trying to legislate marketing and scare people into buying their products. If people can't be bothered learn just eight species, they clearly don't care that much do they? And you don't get to write a law just because you're too lazy to educate yourself.
That's an asinine way to put it. I'm sure if someone lobbied to require that organic food be labeled as 'grown in feces' the organic industry would fight against that, and rightfully so. Maybe if the anti-GE movement hadn't spent the past two decades lying about GMOs things would be different, but now defending yourself against fearmongers is evidence that something nefarious is going on? Way to victim blame. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Furthermore, the fight was over mandatory labeling, not voluntary. That's a very big detail you chose to conveniently ignore. In addition, this law also hit the University of Hawai'i's Rainbow papaya, so chew on that. Also, even if Monsanto were so evil, that doesn't justify hurting the farmers. You probably used gasoline produced by a fairly nasty company today, maybe you should be shackled for their crimes. Of course, that makes no sense, but you support punishing the farmers by the same logic?
I work in plant science, and I sure would. The anti-GMO movement is to agriculture and plant science what the anti-vaxxers are to medicine and immunology, climate change denialists are to climate science, and creationists are to evolutionary biology and biology in general. The vast majority of their arguments, even the ones that initially sound like they make sense (for example, the 'superweed' thing, or non-scientific issues like labeling), range from very weak and only coherent provided you hold a low level of botanical/agricultural knowledge to downright false (ex. the often quoted Séralini study). I so often hear otherwise rational people repeat anti-GE arguments because the opposition continues to adapt without actually changing their stance, sort of like how the anti-vaxxers started out focusing on thimerosal, then too-many-too-soon, ect. First opposition to GMOs is about health, then the environment, then biodiversity, then corporations, then labeling, then back to health every time you show how the concern is either misplaced or outright false. This is an movement that has so much misinformation, ignorance, and ideology mixed up into it, and ti is wrong in many ways.
And I'm not saying there is no nuance on the topic, I'm not, there is, there are legitimate issues here, but to say that gives the anti-GE movement any credibility is like taking the very real controversy over the evolutionary history of the gnetophytes as evidence that creationism has some merit.
The initial ball-rollers were the taro farmers, and for entirely different (and IMO legitimate) reasons. There are a lot of small independent family (actually a family, not just a big conglomerate owned by a family) taro farmers. With taro (it's like a big potato), much of the planting is done by cutting of the top of the corm (the potato part) and replanting it. They saw what Monsanto was doing with not allowing corn farmers to save seed, and were concerned that if the taro market went to GMO the same thing would happen with taro, where farmers would be entirely dependent on Monsanto and pretty much unable to resist or remain independent.
That whole 'save the kalo' thing was driven a lot by religion and ignorance. There was a lot of vitriol because of patented taro varieties that the UH developed. However, they patented those varieties for a damned good reason: when they developed the macadamia varieties that are now used worldwide, they did not patent them, and as a result, the trees found themselves right away in South Africa and Australia where labor costs are cheaper, then sold back into the US, thus hurting the Hawaiian industry. The researchers who worked with the taro did not want that to happen again. There were also people getting pissy about new varieties making bad poi, which is a dumb thing to get angry about because that is not the taro breeder's fault that farmers try new taro huli. Yeah, some were mad about the patents, but no one is forcing anyone to use patented huli!
The GMO thing was absolutely absurd, especially considering that the University of Hawai'i allows replanting of transgenic papaya. I have a strong suspicion that the anti-GE groups had a strong hand to play in the GMO taro fiasco, and furthermore, not all taro growers supported that ban. The fact is, disease wiped out taro in other islands, like Samoa. The southern leaf blight and taro blight that the GE taro were engineered to be resistant to were not as bad as what Samoa had, but if the Alomae-Bobone Virus Complex comes to Hawai'i kiss your poi goodbye. And there was even one kupuna who said they would rather the taro die out than see it be GMO. Such concern for ol' Haloa! And of course there were a lot of ignorant moke who just wanted to pound their chests at the haoles, that hullabaloo was part of it too.
There is already a ban on genetically engineered taro in Hawai'i. The justification was that it was religiously offensive to (some) Native Hawaiians (who had been used as tools by anti-GE groups, IMO). How that one managed to become law is baffling, but considering that region is a good enough reason to pass an anti-GE law in Hawai'i, this law passing was not much surprise. Take note, by the way, that the taro research was being done by the University of Hawai'i, also known as not Monsanto. That's right, university research is being stiffed over religion. How is there no outrage over this?
This new law may be overturned however. The farmers do not like it, at least, the ones who aren't peddling overpriced organic food anyway...conveniently, those guys seem okay with legislating away the competition. It is not fair, hurts local agriculture on the Big Island (read the bill,expanding a farm if you use biotechnology comes with a $1000 a day fine, which will not help food security on the island). This whole thing is just wrong. We should be encouraging agriculture, and encouraging technology, not hurting something good and ignoring the real issues that legitimately are cause for concern, like land costs.
Ok, then explain the thugs who tried to destroy the GE wheat trial at Rothamsted, or the ones who did destroy the GE potatoes at the University of Leeds.
The anti-Monsanto is just a convenient attempt to justify anti-science bullshit (and even that card is factually weak). That's why there's opposition to Golden Rice, the Rainbow papaya, The Arctic apple, and every other non-Monsanto GMO. If it was just about Monsanto, that wouldn't happen, but it does.
GMO is even less tested
Wrong. As the AC above points out, there are hundreds of studies on GE crops, and no plausible mechanism as to why they would be inherently dangerous. Quit spreading misinformation.
I don't think it's too much to allow people to have labeling to then be able to make informed choices about whether they want to be a part of this huge un-controlled human trial.
See above. Labeling is at this point about as justified as mandatory labels for religious dietary choices. It singles out one particular aspect of agriculture without justification (ever heard anyone demand any other crop improvement method be labeled? That's because the organic industry isn't selling alternatives to them) and ignores just how easily those who care can avoid GE crops with a little bit of educations. What you are proposing would be like demanding mandatory labels on WiFi routers saying 'emits radiation.' It's not wrong, but it is damned misleading to those without basic knowledge of WiFi, and unnecessary to those who do.
Not to the small farmers who grow papaya or corn for the Big Island dairy industry though, which they will have to pay if they wish to grow their crop in a 'non-traditional' location, as per the bill.
Nope, the same people opposing every other GE crops also oppose the Rainbow papaya. The anti-GE people don't care that the papayas were developed by the university.
And one more thing I almost forgot: instead of using your money to support farming organically, which is basically what happens when you apply the appeal to nature fallacy to agriculture, instead you should support biodiverse underutilized crop species. That is what really needs financial support. When you find them, buy things like jícama, sunchoke, prickly pear, persimmon, lychee, pepino, kiwano, taro, quinoa, amaranth, ect. Biodiversity is a critical and commonly neglected aspect of agriculture. If you want to support something meaningful, support that.
It isn't unreasonable to be opposed to monopoly. I doubt you will find many academic scientists who would disagree with that. It doesn't follow that you should oppose GE crops for that reason though. First off, there is not really a monopoly: there's Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer Cropscience, Pioneer Hi-Bred (DuPont), BASF, Dow Agrosciences, and various smaller companies. And of course, nothing stops farmers from doing the old fashioned saving of heirloom seed. In fact, if you look at the USDA's page on approved GE crops you can see more than just Monsanto, including a small company in Canada trying to get approval for a consumer oriented trait and a university developed crop, the Rainbow papaya developed by the University of Hawai'i (unfortunately, it is the only currently approved university developed crop, because unfortunately most university scientists do not have the funds to get a GE crop through the over strict approval process, which effectively favors large companies).
Another thing, when you buy organic, who do you think sells those farmers the seed? Monsanto, ect. sell more than just GE seed you know. You may very well be paying extra for more Monsanto seed.
except that they tend to be proprietary
For one thing, there's more than just GE crops that are patented. Ever had a pluot? Patented. Ever had a Honeycrisp apple? Formerly patented, until the patent expired. Neither of those are genetically engineered. Farmers who grow those things are willing to pay extra for those plants because then they can get an advantage out of them, no different than any other investment, and the people who develop those plants patent them so that they can make further investments, like the pluerry or SnowSweet apple (which is my number one favorite apple and would recommend anyone with a back yard buy a plant since the apples aren't commercially available, so I'm rather glad the apple breeding program that developed it was able to support itself on the patent royalties from Honeycrisp).
I don't really see the problem with plant patents. Developer gets exclusive control over the thing they developed for a period of time and hopefully makes enough money to reinvest it, then the patent expires so everyone can use the thing freely, like what happened with the Honeycrisp apple. Isn't that how the system is supposed to work? Unlike the copyright system where things last the life of the universe plus five years, I think this looks pretty good.
Prove that microwave heated food isn't dangerous. Microwaves are totally different than simple heated air that people have been using for centuries, which heats food more slowly. Totally different results too; your pizza will be all mushy and not crisp when it is made in a microwave. You couldn't do that with an oven. And you have no idea what alterations you are making to the food. It isn't like anyone has ever studied it, and if they have, Big Microwave has silenced them.
But you are right, the point I made was rather stupid. Saying that all differences are meaningful is often an oversimplification of an issue.
It's about the fact that a very significant portion of the people WANT GMO labeling.
A very significant portion, when asked, also want a Lamborghini. What's your point? If people really want GE labeling, there are already things like the Non-GMO project. Have at it. But wait, those products don't have a majority market share, almost as if most people don't actually care, and the push for labeling is coming form organic groups and ideologically opposed groups trying to legislate their marketing. I want organic products to clearly start 'grown in poop.' Hey, why are they hiding that fact by not labeling it, hmm? That works both ways.
Who is Monsanto to decide we can't know true facts about the things we put in our bodies???
The information is freely available, just because you are too lazy to do a five second Google search to find it does not mean it should be labeled. You are creating a controversy where none exists.
you don't know that all present and future GMO products are not unsafe in ways people fear. I
You are demanding I prove a negative? You have no idea how science actually works do you?
Yeah, I'd have a lot less problem with GM foods, if they weren't leading to monopolization of the food provision chain by one or a very few companies.
Then you should advocate for less restrictions of GE crops. Many in academia would love to be able to release new GE lines of crops, but cannot because the high regulatory burden favors large companies like Monsanto. Ironically, people who are ideologically opposed to GE crops and demand greater regulation are shielding Monsanto from competition.
the testing coverage of GMOs is very weak.
Then why has Monsanto/Dow not released their 2,4-D and dicamba tolerant crops? Why did it take so long to release DroughtGard? What you are saying is the exact opposite of true; the testing is too stringent, preventing university research from seeing fruition (except fo the University of Hawai'i's Rainbow papaya).
There is this get out jail free card they use to legally avoid testing called substantial equivalence [wikipedia.org] - the theory is that if you are just mixing genes from two different kinds of food, then its all good.
No, substantial equivalence says if two things are functionally the same you can treat the like it. So, if a corn is a corn except it has a cspB in it, and if this protein is shown to be treated by the body no differently than the rest of the proteins produced by the plant, and the corn has no other meaningful differences, then it is treated the same as any other corn. You are completely misrepresenting the concept.
So yeah, there is no known mechanism because no one is looking for one.
No, there is no known mechanism because there's no known mechanism. And by the way, why is it that you claims no one is looking for any mechanism? Another ridiculous Monsanto conspiracy about how everyone in plant & agricultural science are evil/paid off? We eat the same food you do you know, and if there were any evidence that it were dangerous, it is pretty insulting to say that every plant scientist, except for a few crackpots like Séralini, would turn a blind eye to it. And why is it that if you said the same thing about climate change, evolution, wifi, or vaccines, then you would be recognized as very silly, but somehow when you say the same thing about GE crops it is insightful?
Untested, unproven, with insufficient research on safety.
Ignoring all this perhaps. Hey, if they are so untested, why is it that all those things currently awaiting approval listed on the APHIS site are not yet on the market? Is it our of Monsanto's altruistic concern? And why can't university labs muster up the funding to jump past the regulatory hurdles? Which is it, not tested, or Monsanto cares?
Also, GM crops have thus far failed to deliver on the higher yield claims
Note how they specify 'in the United States' with the implication that GE crops were supposed to improve yields. You do realize there is more to agriculture than yield, yes? If you are already tilling and spraying insecticides/herbicides, as is the case in developed countries, do you honestly expect insect resistant and herbicide tolerant crops to improve yields? Of course not, though if you talk to a farmer about the Round-Up/LibertyLink systems, they still prefer it (hell, there's even some evidence to indicate that sometimes they have lower yield in those systems, but railing on that makes the silly assumption that agriculture can be measured with a single number). If the UCS's report is news to you than you are pretty uninformed.
Naturally of course, they conveniently ignore the Rainbow papaya that saved the Hawaiian papaya industry, which should undeniably demonstrate that GE crops can serve a purpose for yield gains, even if we assume that preventing insect damage, by some curiously unexplained phenomenon, does not reduce losses.
As for your criticisms, first off, you must be looking at a different graph that I am, second fails to point out anything of interest, and third your criticism is basically 'we might lose the benefits already provided by GE crops therefore GE crops are bad' which is pretty silly, especially considering that not all herbicides are the same, a fact Benbrook consistently ignores (sort of like a liter of wine has more mass than a line of cocaine but less impact, which is the true measure of a substance), that same scenario, and similar cases with respect to pests and pathogens, has happened with numerous crops in the past, yet it is only with GE crops that people direct criticism for basic issues of agriculture.
That I'm right, and you don't like it, doesn't mean I'm a shill.
And I forgot to add that one of the reason people in developing countries have so many kids is because they need them. Improve their social conditions, and that need goes away. If you give people food, they will have more kids yes, but only in the short term. Letting people starve, besides being inhumane, is doesn't even address any issue with overpopulation (which has been predicted to kill us all for quite some time now...the population bomb as the consistency of every other end of the world).
You are basically saying that if the problems of the world were to go away we wouldn't need solutions. That's a pretty vacuous statement.
GMO is a non-solution to a problem that we could much more easily prevent.
And yet, no one would say the same of breeding for higher yield or disease resistance, but suddenly when you use technology, it is wrong.
The only winner in GMO is the patent holder who collects the royalties.
And the farmers, and the people, and the environment. Things look pretty grim when you ignore a lot of facts.
How about letting the marketplace decide?
I don't think you know what a free market is. There is already non-GE options out there. In a free market, people will chose them if they really want ot. In a less free market, those selling the non-GE crops will have the government enforce what amounts scare labels (at least after years of baseless fearmongering anyway) on competitors' products.
what's the deal with giving us a label to know if it is GMO or not
Demonizing a beneficial technology is a good one. Furthermore, you could say that about a lot of things. What's the harm in knowing if food is Haram? Maybe we should have mandatory labeling for Islamic dietary laws? But of course, that would be silly. Same here. There's lots of things that could be labeled on food, but unless something is has a good reason beyond 'I want it' (like allergens or calories, for instance) then I don't see your legal grounds for mandatory labeling. Besides, it is pretty easy to tell if something is GE or not with a little education for those who really care. There are only eight food crops that are actually genetically engineered, and if you can't take a few minutes to educate yourself, that's your own lazy problem.
No, it's about being open and honest about what goes into your food.
Okay, what gets labeled? Personally, I want to know if my peanuts have genes for nematode resistance bred in from other Arachis species? Or maybe what resistance gene (Ph-3, Ph-5, ect) is in my tomato. Maybe I'd like to know what rootstock my pear was grafted onto. I'd also like to know if my carrot was the result of a doubled haploid hybrid. Tell me what line of wheat is in my bread, and if it is the result of a mutation breeding line. Is my banana the result of tissue culture? What bud sport of apple am I eating?
Here's another thing to think about: GE corn has higher levels of fungal toxin. If Monsanto, in the name of consumer education, lobbied for non-GE corn labeled as having increased mycotoxins, would you think them scummy? What if they pushed for a clear label on organic food if I was grown in manure? Now reverse that, and when organic producers and organization try to push labels on things they conveniently sell the alternative to, then suddenly it is out of their own benevolence? Bollocks to that.
Why is no one advocating those? I'll tell you why. You could label all sorts of things about food, but they are not required because that is as meaningless as labeling the day of harvest. You want to know if something is GE or not; it is easy, corn, soy, canola, cotton, alfalfa, sugar beet, papaya, summer squash. If it has them, with some nuance, and isn't organic, it is likely GE. With a little education, no labels needed, so why push for them? Why not just do voluntary labeling for those who care, like Kosher and Halal? Because the organic companies funding those initiatives are looking to get government mandated marketing, that's why. There is a reason they are pushing for labeling and not education (although their versions of education are about as scientific as creationism). There is a reason they are singling out a single thing and not giving any of the background information to understand the significance of that thing.
That was pretty damn insidious by Pro-GMO Big Ag.
Well, considering that the anti-GMO guys tried to manipulate the law to benefit their own organic businesses, I'd say there's more than enough anger to go around. Sure, I'm mad at Monsanto too, but organic producers tried to irrationally demonize a beneficial technology that could be saving lives simply for their won profit, and that's way worse than Monsanto's anti-prop 37 campaign.
They come out of the woodwork any time the letters "G" "M" and "O" appear together in a story.
Maybe there's actually people in plant biology here who get ticked at all the misinformation people are spreading about the field? Maybe for some people here this stuff is more than some story to yammer about on the internet.
Initial indications are of harm from glyphosate residues and retained b.t. toxin, at least in pregnant women in the latter case.
You are referring to this study. That study doesn't even try to attempt to find out where the Bt they claim to detected came from. It could have been from organic food, which also uses Bt. Of course, since the levels of Bt they found were below the detection limit of the test they used, among other flaws, I'm not convinced they found anything but an artifact. We do know the effects, at least for the commercially approved crops, and at least as well as can be know without proving a negative. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean people won't still spread misinformation and publish the occasional shoddy paper though.