Glyphosate is one of the safest herbicides. Your other options are tillage, which destroys the soil, or harsher herbicides. Got a better way to control weeds? Let me know, and don't say putting them. Who's going to pull weeds in the 96 million acres of just corn, and that's just in the US? You?
#4. that glyphosphate-resistant crops are made via Cauliflower Mosaic Virus transgenic infection is legal.
You're confusing the promoter region with the genetic transformation method. In other words, you are very fuzzy on this topic.
#5. that any person who speaks English would write one word in favor of the hubris of Man and the obscure mutation of nature.
Eaten a seedless orange lately? Thank mutation breeding.
You sound like an X-Men villain with your screed against mutation. Mutation is the engine of evolution that made humans and all our crops & crop diversity.
First off, who has a monopoly? Is it Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred, BASF, Dow Agrosciences, Bayer Cropsciences, Vilmorin? I don't see anyone forced to choose. Second, the reason only one GE crop (the transgenic papaya ringspot virus resistant papaya developed by the University of Hawai'i) is not produced by a large corporation is because of the extremely, excessively high levels of regulation on GE crops. You think that UH could get the Rainbow papaya through the regulatory hurdles today? I doubt it. Hell, basic research in Hawai'i is getting banned. Or look at Golden Rice...it could save countless lives and there are no corporate strings attached, but because of so much unscientific regulation it isn't being used. You don't want corporate control? Then ignore the anti-GMO fearmongering and tell the government to ease up on the unjustified regulations!
Should include this as something that highlights the various likelihoods of unintended effects associated with crop improvement methods. Mutagenesis is at the top. Cisgenic GMOs (GMOs with genes from the same or closely related species) are toward the bottom. Note that the anti-GE movement tends to oppose them too, like these potatoes that were destroyed.
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.
with corn which contains pesticides (primarily neonicotinoids, if I understand what I have read correctly)
It actually is the Bt protein that corn contains. Bt is better known as the same thing that has been sprayed on organic crops for decades to no ill effect. This protein is also quite well understood,and does not affect mammals. Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides that are sprayed on crops which have been implicated in colony collapse disorder. A lot of anti-GMO folks like to point out that GMOs are often sprayed with them, therefore are responsible for CCD, which of course is dishonest and is only true because large amounts of some crops are GE.
Of course, strictly speaking, all corn has pesticides in it. Chemical defenses are how plants evolved to defend themselves in place of swatting at bugs like animals can do. Even 'all natural' organic non-GMO corn will contain naturally produced insecticides like maysin and benzoxazinoids (nd if it is organic, probably BT too).
I've never heard anyone seriously propose that Golden Rice be the only possible solution investigated, and it is a very big straw man to suggest that anyone is. I have, however, heard people saying that, solely because it is genetically engineered, more people should die while we wait for the other possible solutions.
I'd rather not have food that is engineered to produce compounds toxic to pests
This seems to be one of the big disconnects between most people and genetic engineering. Often anti-GE types try to make GE crops out to be scary by pointing out that some are engineered to express insecticidal toxins, but it really isn't if you know much about plant biology. All plants produce insecticidal compounds. They can't defend themselves by attacking pests like an animal can so they evolved chemical defenses. Even your non-GMO corn is going to contain insecticides like maysin and benzoxazinoids. Plants make poisons; this is just the way of things, and adding one more really is not something you should be inherently concerned about, especially considering that, for one thing, the insecticide inserted is very well understood, very specific in its mode of action, and is non-toxic to mammals. Additionally, it's preferable to pesticide sprays....bugs aren't just going to leave the crops along, you've got to control them somehow. Also, it probably reduces mycotoxin infection from fungi (less damage to the corn kernels means less fungal infection which means less mycotoxins). So, it's actually a pretty good thing, but those who scream about how 'they're putting pesticides right in the food!' strangely never want to give people the background context to the topic.
Fun fact about that: through good old fashioned, non-controversial conventional breeding, a potato with toxic levels of solanine was produced. If genetic engineering did that, you'd never hear the end of it, yet strangely none of the anti-GMO organizations will put things in context by bringing up that topic (either that or they are simply ignorant of the both the science and the history of crop improvement, which is commonly the case).
How about we encourage them to grow more sweet potatoes (which naturally have a high vitamin A content)
Agronomic, economic, social, and technological issues that can't be simply waved away by saying 'well just do this' maybe? If the solution was so simple don't you think someone would have done it already?
Think of Golden Rice as applying pressure to a slit wrist. Does it fix the underlying problem? Nope, but you if you were bleeding profusely you wouldn't reject someone putting pressure on it for that reason, would you? No, you would accept until you could get better care, which is the purpose of Golden Rice. We don't live in a world with perfect solutions, so things like Golden Rice are there to keep people from dying until the such solutions are globally feasible.
Growing carrots, sweet potatoes,mangoes, papaya, or other vitamin-A rich crops is a much more sensible answer -- unless one is devoted to the current exploitative system.
Thank God the poorest people in the world can afford that and the refrigeration and transport necessary to facility that. Stupid poor people for not thinking of hoping down to the local Walmart sooner.
Golden rice only contributes to the problem (economic and ecological) of monoculture.
Bullshit. You think people want to live off rice their whole lives? They aren't going to get this and decide they want nothing else; this is to help until a more varied diet can be available to everyone. Of course Golden Rice isn't the ideal solution, but good luck changing the socioeconomic problems of global poverty before more people die.
Its purpose is to provide good PR for the biotech industry:
So the good that biotech can do is simply dismissed as PR. Nice spin. I suppose vaccinations are just good PR for big pharma and serve no other purpose.
our GM crops are largely untested for safety, and most of the studies on safety that do exist are ones we've done ourselves (trust us!)
In the same sense that switching from a weekly line of coke to a weekly class of wine is an increase in drug use. Now look at the overall environmental impact of switching form less harmful herbicides and tillage to no-till systems using glyphosate and glufosinate...but of course a holistic point of view wouldn't fit the technology bad narrative.
It's not science, it's scientism in the advancement of corporatism.
with food made with crops containing less well understood properties (the component that makes the crop resistant to Round Up).
That isn't really true; the gene for glyphosate tolerance is pretty well understood. It's just a bacterial form of the EPSPS enzyme present in all plants. The glyphosate in Round-Up (or whatever other glyphosate brand one chooses to use) binds to the EPSPS in plants and prevents them from synthesizing essential amino acids, causing the plant's death. In the transgenic plants, with the C4 EPSPS, the site that glyphosate would normally bind to is different, preventing it from being fatally disabled by a Round-Up application. For all intents and purposes, it is the same protein, just with enough difference to the binding site that a plant with it can survive the herbicide.
Have you tried finding out in what way GMO foods at your local supermarket have been modified?
Yes. Corn for insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, and drought resistance. Cotton for insect resistance and herbicide tolerance. Soy, canola, and sugar beet for herbicide tolerance. Papaya and summer squash for virus resistance. Laziness is no one's fault but your own. Now tell me all the other, non-GMO ways a crop is altered...good luck.
But they started by making crops more watery (and thus less nutritious)
And that is done via conventional breeding, which is wholly non-controversial. Funny how GMOs get blamed though.
making it so farmers can blanket entire US states with herbicides without affecting the desired crops
And thus phase out harsher herbicides and environmentally damaging tillage...don't leave out that key detail.
introducing pesticides that AFAIK are just assumed to be safe
If by assumed you mean known, then yes.
because of the activists companies it was the bad brush instead of the good one.
Most of the ignorance and fear you speak of stems directly from the mistrust in the very companies controlling GMOs
I disagree, considering the fear started with relatively small company, Calgene, and their Flavr Savr tomato, the first GMO?
Most of the distrust comes from activists stoking fear about the corporations and the science, not the corporations themselves.
who go so far as to prevent any such labeling on any food to merely identify it as containing their own product
They don't prevent labeling, they oppose forcing labeling. I'm sure if someone wanted to label organic crops as having been grown in cow crap, the organic producers would, rightfully, fight against that too.
There are dozens of possible solutions, virtually all of which have been available for decades now.
Indeed there are...vitamin A pills and nutrient rich vegetables come to mind. To bad the former requires a constant supply being delivered, and the later requires a developed transportation infrastructure, refrigeration, and enough money to purchase vegetables. Your comment amounts to 'Let them eat cake.'
Unfortunately to force additional sales most GM plants are bred so that they cannot generate subsequent generations
This actually is a common misconception. GM plants can reproduce, it's just that there are a few caveats to it. First and foremost, all commercially available GMO seed is also hybrid seed. Hybrid varieties have been around for decades longer than genetic engineering, and while they give hybrid vigor to the plant, they also mean the plant will not reproduce true to seed and if you save and replant the seed you will have an inferior crop next year. Many farmers long ago decided hybrid seed was worth it. Genetic engineering is just, basically, an add on to this in that sense. It isn't done to force sales (although seed companies no doubt appreciate that secondary effect) so much as it is a law of life on earth. Companies didn't do it, that's just how it is. Of course, GMO plants don't necessarily HAVE to be hybrid (and there are cases I can think of where you wouldn't want them to be), its just that they are sold as such.
The other issue here is that of contracts. When you buy seed from a company like Monsanto they require that you sign a contract saying you won't save seed. Most of the times seed wouldn't be saved anyway as a result of the hybrid issue, but they probably don't want someone buying seed then breeding their own varieties with the transgenic trait.
Of course, there is genetic use restriction technology, aka the infamous terminator technology, but it is presently not in use, nor has it ever been, contrary to what many anti-biotech activists would have you believe.
It has everything to do with GM food because what we are getting has been modified to maximize their profit, not for our benefit
So? How does that imply there is anything wrong with them? That the companies that make these aren't charities doesn't indicate that GMOs are dangerous, and that GMO crops benefit corporations does not mean they cannot also benefit others (like this for example).
There is a high probability that it is safe, but it isn't proven.
Safety is a lack of danger. You can not prove a negative.
They introduces proteins (insecticides, herbicide resistance, etc) into our food supply that our bodies don't know how to deal with
That's very wrong for a number of reasons. First, our bodies don't have some list of proteins that can and cannot be digested. If they did than eating a new species with thousands of new genes would be disastrous. At any rate, the proteins inserted into GMO crops are very well understood, and they are not known to be dangerous (in some cases, they were already in the food supply before GMOs). Second, don't act as if insecticides are scary; how do you think plants defend themselves for insect herbivory anyway? They evolved chemical defenses, aka insecticides. You think black pepper, for example, produces piperine in its seeds, in its very offspring, so that other organisms can kill off its next generation? Nope, that is an insecticide. Insecticides are only scary in the absense of the context of plant biology. Third, there has been a massive amount of study on GMO crops. They risk of getting hurt form them is about as high as the risk of getting autism from the MMR vaccine.
2) Modified organism may have a significant survival advantage and become invasive organisms, with all the problems that entails
That kind of depends, but in general, crop plants are not known for reproducing so much that they take over native environments, and not all traits confer an advantage in the wild. This is theoretical possible, but does not appear to be a concern with any currently used GMO crops.
3) Generally speaking the modified species can cross-breed with their natural relatives, potentially making the original stock unavailable if we discover serious problems down the road.
It first depends on if there are any wild relatives to cross with: corn in Europe, Asia, and Africa won't have any wild relatives for example. Certainly, matters of ecology are less clear cut than matters of utility or health, but that doesn't mean
4) GMOs tend to be patented, which means we're putting control of our food supply into the hands of a few powerful companies, and eliminating time-honored farming practices in the process, such as keeping part of your harvest to plant the next season.
The saving of seed was hurt mostly by the development of hybrid seed long ago, not GMO seed. Ditto for the rise of large seed companies. Non-patented, non-GMO alternatives are still available. that farmers generally don't use them should tell you how they feel about the matter.
A lot of GM detractors don't like it for legal reasons.
I have a hard time buying that one because the opposition to genetic engineering started with the Flavr Savr tomato before Monsanto even got involved, and continues to university produced GE crops like the Rainbow papaya, NGO ones like Golden Rice, and government produced ones like the wheat that CSIRO developed that Greenpeace thugs destroyed.
Also due to their patents you may get sued due to cross-pollination OR if you switch crops and yet a bit of last year's crop still grows on your fields. Which does happen.
No, it doesn't. There has not been a single instance of anyone being sued for simple cross pollination. Cross pollination then knowing and intentional selection and reproduction, yes, but not an accident. That's like saying someone got sued for accidentally receiving a DVD in the mail while conveniently neglecting the part where they were reproducing the DVD in mass quantities.
GM monster things
GM monster things? Sounds like you've got more than just legal reasons on your mind.
I'm still skeptical these will do so well because, quite frankly, vege burgers and other meat substitutes are actually very good alternatives to meat already. I won't claim they're as good, but they are pretty damned close and, considering that they are easier to make, less chance of food borne illness, and healthier for you and the environment, I'd recommend giving them a shot. If the vat grown stuff can be better in cost and taste, then maybe it will do well, but I think the main advantage it has is that there is stigma on the concept of vege burgers and the like. And if protein is a concern, between things like various beans and quinoa, that can be handled without meat too.
This is a cool idea and I hope no foodie luddites start with the fearmongering (I guarantee in a sooner or later someone out there will start claiming vat grown meat causes cancer), but really I think there is a suitable, and quite possibly superior, technology already here.
Considering that genes in species like apple and tomato are brought in from wild relatives via breeding, I'd say you're wrong. Furthermore, a good number of the genes inserted were already in the food supply to begin with: the insect resistant proteins were already used in organic farming, the virus resistant traits are derived from the virus the traits protect against (meaning the non-GMO ones have more foreign genes!), the glyphosate tolerant gene is a bacterial form of a protein plants already have. If you are concerned about new genes in the food supply, your true enemy is biodiversity. New crops like kiwis have caused allergies and starfruit have killed people. They introduce a lot more new genes into the food supply than GMOs.
At any rate, the GMOs in the food supply have been extensively studied. You can muse all you want; if it disagrees with experiment, its wrong.
And before investing time effort and funding into insect based food sources I would think making that investment into alternative plant based foods, like quinoa for protein and purslane for omega-3s, would make sense.
And why the hell not? Techniques based in biological factors, as opposed to inputs, are the future of farming. The use of beneficial microbial life, as well as the changing of genetics, are both sustainable biological methods of agricultural improvement.
Farmers would never waste money on fertilizer that just gets washed away.
It really isn't a flat out waste so much as an inefficiency. The more fertilizer you use, the higher your yield, but the lower the fertilizer uptake rate of the plant. To use a simplified example, if you apply a kilogram of fertilizer, a group of plants might take up.5kg, but if you apply 2kg, the plants might only uptake.9kg, which means that the plants are getting more nutrients overall but are using a smaller portion of what is applied as the applied amount rises.. Of course farmers don't spend time and money they don't have to on unnecessary fertilizer, it is just that efficiency drops as usage increases, which is why nutrient use efficiency research is important.
That's exactly what I was getting at. There are already problems with fertilizer use. New ways of utilizing nitrogen fixing bacteria could provide a superior alternative, or at least cut the need for fertilizers.
Slashdot Mirror
#3. that glyphosphate (Roundup) is legal
Glyphosate is one of the safest herbicides. Your other options are tillage, which destroys the soil, or harsher herbicides. Got a better way to control weeds? Let me know, and don't say putting them. Who's going to pull weeds in the 96 million acres of just corn, and that's just in the US? You?
#4. that glyphosphate-resistant crops are made via Cauliflower Mosaic Virus transgenic infection is legal.
You're confusing the promoter region with the genetic transformation method. In other words, you are very fuzzy on this topic.
#5. that any person who speaks English would write one word in favor of the hubris of Man and the obscure mutation of nature.
Eaten a seedless orange lately? Thank mutation breeding.
You sound like an X-Men villain with your screed against mutation. Mutation is the engine of evolution that made humans and all our crops & crop diversity.
First off, who has a monopoly? Is it Monsanto, Syngenta, Pioneer Hi-Bred, BASF, Dow Agrosciences, Bayer Cropsciences, Vilmorin? I don't see anyone forced to choose. Second, the reason only one GE crop (the transgenic papaya ringspot virus resistant papaya developed by the University of Hawai'i) is not produced by a large corporation is because of the extremely, excessively high levels of regulation on GE crops. You think that UH could get the Rainbow papaya through the regulatory hurdles today? I doubt it. Hell, basic research in Hawai'i is getting banned. Or look at Golden Rice...it could save countless lives and there are no corporate strings attached, but because of so much unscientific regulation it isn't being used. You don't want corporate control? Then ignore the anti-GMO fearmongering and tell the government to ease up on the unjustified regulations!
Should include this as something that highlights the various likelihoods of unintended effects associated with crop improvement methods. Mutagenesis is at the top. Cisgenic GMOs (GMOs with genes from the same or closely related species) are toward the bottom. Note that the anti-GE movement tends to oppose them too, like these potatoes that were destroyed.
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.
with corn which contains pesticides (primarily neonicotinoids, if I understand what I have read correctly)
It actually is the Bt protein that corn contains. Bt is better known as the same thing that has been sprayed on organic crops for decades to no ill effect. This protein is also quite well understood,and does not affect mammals. Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides that are sprayed on crops which have been implicated in colony collapse disorder. A lot of anti-GMO folks like to point out that GMOs are often sprayed with them, therefore are responsible for CCD, which of course is dishonest and is only true because large amounts of some crops are GE.
Of course, strictly speaking, all corn has pesticides in it. Chemical defenses are how plants evolved to defend themselves in place of swatting at bugs like animals can do. Even 'all natural' organic non-GMO corn will contain naturally produced insecticides like maysin and benzoxazinoids (nd if it is organic, probably BT too).
I've never heard anyone seriously propose that Golden Rice be the only possible solution investigated, and it is a very big straw man to suggest that anyone is. I have, however, heard people saying that, solely because it is genetically engineered, more people should die while we wait for the other possible solutions.
I'd rather not have food that is engineered to produce compounds toxic to pests
This seems to be one of the big disconnects between most people and genetic engineering. Often anti-GE types try to make GE crops out to be scary by pointing out that some are engineered to express insecticidal toxins, but it really isn't if you know much about plant biology. All plants produce insecticidal compounds. They can't defend themselves by attacking pests like an animal can so they evolved chemical defenses. Even your non-GMO corn is going to contain insecticides like maysin and benzoxazinoids. Plants make poisons; this is just the way of things, and adding one more really is not something you should be inherently concerned about, especially considering that, for one thing, the insecticide inserted is very well understood, very specific in its mode of action, and is non-toxic to mammals. Additionally, it's preferable to pesticide sprays....bugs aren't just going to leave the crops along, you've got to control them somehow. Also, it probably reduces mycotoxin infection from fungi (less damage to the corn kernels means less fungal infection which means less mycotoxins). So, it's actually a pretty good thing, but those who scream about how 'they're putting pesticides right in the food!' strangely never want to give people the background context to the topic.
Fun fact about that: through good old fashioned, non-controversial conventional breeding, a potato with toxic levels of solanine was produced. If genetic engineering did that, you'd never hear the end of it, yet strangely none of the anti-GMO organizations will put things in context by bringing up that topic (either that or they are simply ignorant of the both the science and the history of crop improvement, which is commonly the case).
How about we encourage them to grow more sweet potatoes (which naturally have a high vitamin A content)
Agronomic, economic, social, and technological issues that can't be simply waved away by saying 'well just do this' maybe? If the solution was so simple don't you think someone would have done it already?
Think of Golden Rice as applying pressure to a slit wrist. Does it fix the underlying problem? Nope, but you if you were bleeding profusely you wouldn't reject someone putting pressure on it for that reason, would you? No, you would accept until you could get better care, which is the purpose of Golden Rice. We don't live in a world with perfect solutions, so things like Golden Rice are there to keep people from dying until the such solutions are globally feasible.
Growing carrots, sweet potatoes,mangoes, papaya, or other vitamin-A rich crops is a much more sensible answer -- unless one is devoted to the current exploitative system.
Thank God the poorest people in the world can afford that and the refrigeration and transport necessary to facility that. Stupid poor people for not thinking of hoping down to the local Walmart sooner.
Golden rice only contributes to the problem (economic and ecological) of monoculture.
Bullshit. You think people want to live off rice their whole lives? They aren't going to get this and decide they want nothing else; this is to help until a more varied diet can be available to everyone. Of course Golden Rice isn't the ideal solution, but good luck changing the socioeconomic problems of global poverty before more people die.
Its purpose is to provide good PR for the biotech industry:
So the good that biotech can do is simply dismissed as PR. Nice spin. I suppose vaccinations are just good PR for big pharma and serve no other purpose.
our GM crops are largely untested for safety, and most of the studies on safety that do exist are ones we've done ourselves (trust us!)
Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
they have led to increased pesticides use
In the same sense that switching from a weekly line of coke to a weekly class of wine is an increase in drug use. Now look at the overall environmental impact of switching form less harmful herbicides and tillage to no-till systems using glyphosate and glufosinate...but of course a holistic point of view wouldn't fit the technology bad narrative.
It's not science, it's scientism in the advancement of corporatism.
Everything's a conspiracy when you're wrong.
with food made with crops containing less well understood properties (the component that makes the crop resistant to Round Up).
That isn't really true; the gene for glyphosate tolerance is pretty well understood. It's just a bacterial form of the EPSPS enzyme present in all plants. The glyphosate in Round-Up (or whatever other glyphosate brand one chooses to use) binds to the EPSPS in plants and prevents them from synthesizing essential amino acids, causing the plant's death. In the transgenic plants, with the C4 EPSPS, the site that glyphosate would normally bind to is different, preventing it from being fatally disabled by a Round-Up application. For all intents and purposes, it is the same protein, just with enough difference to the binding site that a plant with it can survive the herbicide.
Have you tried finding out in what way GMO foods at your local supermarket have been modified?
Yes. Corn for insect resistance, herbicide tolerance, and drought resistance. Cotton for insect resistance and herbicide tolerance. Soy, canola, and sugar beet for herbicide tolerance. Papaya and summer squash for virus resistance. Laziness is no one's fault but your own. Now tell me all the other, non-GMO ways a crop is altered...good luck.
But they started by making crops more watery (and thus less nutritious)
And that is done via conventional breeding, which is wholly non-controversial. Funny how GMOs get blamed though.
making it so farmers can blanket entire US states with herbicides without affecting the desired crops
And thus phase out harsher herbicides and environmentally damaging tillage...don't leave out that key detail.
introducing pesticides that AFAIK are just assumed to be safe
If by assumed you mean known, then yes.
because of the activists companies it was the bad brush instead of the good one.
Fixed that for you.
Most of the ignorance and fear you speak of stems directly from the mistrust in the very companies controlling GMOs
I disagree, considering the fear started with relatively small company, Calgene, and their Flavr Savr tomato, the first GMO?
Most of the distrust comes from activists stoking fear about the corporations and the science, not the corporations themselves.
who go so far as to prevent any such labeling on any food to merely identify it as containing their own product
They don't prevent labeling, they oppose forcing labeling. I'm sure if someone wanted to label organic crops as having been grown in cow crap, the organic producers would, rightfully, fight against that too.
There are dozens of possible solutions, virtually all of which have been available for decades now.
Indeed there are...vitamin A pills and nutrient rich vegetables come to mind. To bad the former requires a constant supply being delivered, and the later requires a developed transportation infrastructure, refrigeration, and enough money to purchase vegetables. Your comment amounts to 'Let them eat cake.'
1. Don't eat dolphin
...except for the ones that blew all their money on instant lottery tickets.
Unfortunately to force additional sales most GM plants are bred so that they cannot generate subsequent generations
This actually is a common misconception. GM plants can reproduce, it's just that there are a few caveats to it. First and foremost, all commercially available GMO seed is also hybrid seed. Hybrid varieties have been around for decades longer than genetic engineering, and while they give hybrid vigor to the plant, they also mean the plant will not reproduce true to seed and if you save and replant the seed you will have an inferior crop next year. Many farmers long ago decided hybrid seed was worth it. Genetic engineering is just, basically, an add on to this in that sense. It isn't done to force sales (although seed companies no doubt appreciate that secondary effect) so much as it is a law of life on earth. Companies didn't do it, that's just how it is. Of course, GMO plants don't necessarily HAVE to be hybrid (and there are cases I can think of where you wouldn't want them to be), its just that they are sold as such.
The other issue here is that of contracts. When you buy seed from a company like Monsanto they require that you sign a contract saying you won't save seed. Most of the times seed wouldn't be saved anyway as a result of the hybrid issue, but they probably don't want someone buying seed then breeding their own varieties with the transgenic trait.
Of course, there is genetic use restriction technology, aka the infamous terminator technology, but it is presently not in use, nor has it ever been, contrary to what many anti-biotech activists would have you believe.
It has everything to do with GM food because what we are getting has been modified to maximize their profit, not for our benefit
So? How does that imply there is anything wrong with them? That the companies that make these aren't charities doesn't indicate that GMOs are dangerous, and that GMO crops benefit corporations does not mean they cannot also benefit others (like this for example).
There is a high probability that it is safe, but it isn't proven.
Safety is a lack of danger. You can not prove a negative.
They introduces proteins (insecticides, herbicide resistance, etc) into our food supply that our bodies don't know how to deal with
That's very wrong for a number of reasons. First, our bodies don't have some list of proteins that can and cannot be digested. If they did than eating a new species with thousands of new genes would be disastrous. At any rate, the proteins inserted into GMO crops are very well understood, and they are not known to be dangerous (in some cases, they were already in the food supply before GMOs). Second, don't act as if insecticides are scary; how do you think plants defend themselves for insect herbivory anyway? They evolved chemical defenses, aka insecticides. You think black pepper, for example, produces piperine in its seeds, in its very offspring, so that other organisms can kill off its next generation? Nope, that is an insecticide. Insecticides are only scary in the absense of the context of plant biology. Third, there has been a massive amount of study on GMO crops. They risk of getting hurt form them is about as high as the risk of getting autism from the MMR vaccine.
2) Modified organism may have a significant survival advantage and become invasive organisms, with all the problems that entails
That kind of depends, but in general, crop plants are not known for reproducing so much that they take over native environments, and not all traits confer an advantage in the wild. This is theoretical possible, but does not appear to be a concern with any currently used GMO crops.
3) Generally speaking the modified species can cross-breed with their natural relatives, potentially making the original stock unavailable if we discover serious problems down the road.
It first depends on if there are any wild relatives to cross with: corn in Europe, Asia, and Africa won't have any wild relatives for example. Certainly, matters of ecology are less clear cut than matters of utility or health, but that doesn't mean
4) GMOs tend to be patented, which means we're putting control of our food supply into the hands of a few powerful companies, and eliminating time-honored farming practices in the process, such as keeping part of your harvest to plant the next season.
The saving of seed was hurt mostly by the development of hybrid seed long ago, not GMO seed. Ditto for the rise of large seed companies. Non-patented, non-GMO alternatives are still available. that farmers generally don't use them should tell you how they feel about the matter.
A lot of GM detractors don't like it for legal reasons.
I have a hard time buying that one because the opposition to genetic engineering started with the Flavr Savr tomato before Monsanto even got involved, and continues to university produced GE crops like the Rainbow papaya, NGO ones like Golden Rice, and government produced ones like the wheat that CSIRO developed that Greenpeace thugs destroyed.
Also due to their patents you may get sued due to cross-pollination OR if you switch crops and yet a bit of last year's crop still grows on your fields. Which does happen.
No, it doesn't. There has not been a single instance of anyone being sued for simple cross pollination. Cross pollination then knowing and intentional selection and reproduction, yes, but not an accident. That's like saying someone got sued for accidentally receiving a DVD in the mail while conveniently neglecting the part where they were reproducing the DVD in mass quantities.
GM monster things
GM monster things? Sounds like you've got more than just legal reasons on your mind.
I'm still skeptical these will do so well because, quite frankly, vege burgers and other meat substitutes are actually very good alternatives to meat already. I won't claim they're as good, but they are pretty damned close and, considering that they are easier to make, less chance of food borne illness, and healthier for you and the environment, I'd recommend giving them a shot. If the vat grown stuff can be better in cost and taste, then maybe it will do well, but I think the main advantage it has is that there is stigma on the concept of vege burgers and the like. And if protein is a concern, between things like various beans and quinoa, that can be handled without meat too.
This is a cool idea and I hope no foodie luddites start with the fearmongering (I guarantee in a sooner or later someone out there will start claiming vat grown meat causes cancer), but really I think there is a suitable, and quite possibly superior, technology already here.
Considering that genes in species like apple and tomato are brought in from wild relatives via breeding, I'd say you're wrong. Furthermore, a good number of the genes inserted were already in the food supply to begin with: the insect resistant proteins were already used in organic farming, the virus resistant traits are derived from the virus the traits protect against (meaning the non-GMO ones have more foreign genes!), the glyphosate tolerant gene is a bacterial form of a protein plants already have. If you are concerned about new genes in the food supply, your true enemy is biodiversity. New crops like kiwis have caused allergies and starfruit have killed people. They introduce a lot more new genes into the food supply than GMOs.
At any rate, the GMOs in the food supply have been extensively studied. You can muse all you want; if it disagrees with experiment, its wrong.
And before investing time effort and funding into insect based food sources I would think making that investment into alternative plant based foods, like quinoa for protein and purslane for omega-3s, would make sense.
And why the hell not? Techniques based in biological factors, as opposed to inputs, are the future of farming. The use of beneficial microbial life, as well as the changing of genetics, are both sustainable biological methods of agricultural improvement.
Farmers would never waste money on fertilizer that just gets washed away.
It really isn't a flat out waste so much as an inefficiency. The more fertilizer you use, the higher your yield, but the lower the fertilizer uptake rate of the plant. To use a simplified example, if you apply a kilogram of fertilizer, a group of plants might take up .5kg, but if you apply 2kg, the plants might only uptake .9kg, which means that the plants are getting more nutrients overall but are using a smaller portion of what is applied as the applied amount rises.. Of course farmers don't spend time and money they don't have to on unnecessary fertilizer, it is just that efficiency drops as usage increases, which is why nutrient use efficiency research is important.
That's exactly what I was getting at. There are already problems with fertilizer use. New ways of utilizing nitrogen fixing bacteria could provide a superior alternative, or at least cut the need for fertilizers.