Some of what you describe is the nature of the seed industry, and has been for a while, so I don't quite think it is fair to single out GE crops. All agricultural improvements come from diversity and by their nature reduce diversity. It is no different than any superior conventionally bred traits. Another thing is that there are quite a number of varieties that have the trait. I picked one random seed vendor that carries RR soybeans and they listed numerous varieties with the trait. Monsanto isn't stupid. Do you think the geneticists developing the lines never heard of the Irish Potato Famine, or the TMSC corn failure of the 70's, or the fall of the Gros Michael banana?
The case you describe about the cost, as far as I know, is not true. I'm fairly certain they are of net economic benefit to the farmers. Also, unlike the Bt crops, I don't know if herbicide tolerant crops actually preform much better, they just make it easier to control yields. The weeds you mention are a problem, but again, the first recorded resistant weed occurred in decades ago, and ever since weeds have developed resistances to various herbicides. These problems, aside from again not being exclusive to GE crops therefore not to be used as an argument against them unless you're going to argue against a whole lot more, are ones that should be solved by improved cultivation practices (like rotations) and the use of a multiple herbicides with multiple modes of action to mitigate the odds of resistance successfully emerging. This is also why we need a better approval process for GE crops. As it stands regulatory burdens are very strict, so only two herbicide tolerant varieties are out there: Monsanto's Round-Up Ready and Syngenta's Liberty Link (which I'll add is always an option of one dislikes Monsanto). Lower barriers to entry would create more much needed competition. And considering the environmental benefits of no till that have been facilitated by GE crops, I wouldn't say no one wins.
I did not know that was the reason behind the.docx thing.
No one disagrees that information is good, but the question still remains, why single out one thing and ignore the rest, and furthermore, if the information is freely available, relatively easily accessible, and non-essential, why should it be labeled instead by law of being left to consumers to seek it out or not?
I was referring to those asinine textbook stickers designed not to inform of the fact that evolution is indeed a theory but to cast doubt upon its validity by singling it out and preying on public ignorance as to what the word theory actually means, which is similar to what the proposed mandatory labels for genetically engineered food seeks to do: spread FUD and create a controversy for a non-scientific reason.
And maybe you should look up what some of those mutations are if you thin genetic engineering is the only way to create herbicide resistance. Or maybe instead of labeling them 'engineered to resist herbicides' they should label them as 'This crop was produced in a manner which promotes no-till farming which prevents eutrophication in of aquatic environments, sequesters carbon, and prevents greenhouse gas emission.' Because that would also be true. Strange that no one is pushing for those labels, I wonder why? At any rate, it still isn't a reason why one should be treated different in terms of labeling.
(which exacerbates disease and lowers productivity in general)
Yes to the first, no to the second. It is pretty easy to understand why monoculture is bad from a disease management standpoint. It creates a great environment for a handful of pests to absolutely thrive. If a potato problem becomes big in an area where it is just nothing but potatoes, and especially if they are generically uniform, then it is like dropping a match in a tinderbox (like the Irish Potato Famine), however, if the potatoes are interspersed with other varieties of potatoes it decreases the chance of disease spread and if they are interspersed with other species it really hinders or even stops it. So yes, monoculture is bad in that respect. But lets not ignore the benefits of economies of scale either. Growing nothing but the same thing allows easier harvesting, planting, and management. There is a reason farmers are willing to use it, and it isn't because they loose yield. I'm a big fan of biodiversity myself, there are so many crop species that could offer so much benefit that we simply don't use it is ridiculous (though that's a rant for another time), but for its flaws monoculture does bring benefits. It is also worth noting that even in big fields of the same crop farmers aren't stupid. they sow different varieties, for example, late and early yielding soybeans to hedge against an early frost.
I disagree about the Bullshit! episode, although they did touch on other issues besides GE crops. What Norman Borlaug actually said was that with only organic we couldn't feed the world, not without GE crops. We might be able to feed the world without them (some people would probably starve though), although as the global population rises water gets scarcer and fertilizer & energy prices rise and peak phosphorus draws closer and climate change rears its ugly head, feeding the world while being picky in which tools we use (including biotechnology, biodiversity, chemical inputs, and biological controls) to do so becomes an increasingly irrational and implausible notion.
As far as I am concerned, if they can't sell it for what it is, then they shouldn't be selling it.
And if people can't label evolution as what it is, just a theory, then they shouldn't be teaching it. See what I did there? Just because groups lie about it enough such that a largely ignorant about the topic population is scared doesn't mean it should be treated specially. What if you labeled bread as 'This product contains mutagen produced wheat'? Think people would like that? Probably not, yet that applies to somewhere around 80% of all wheat varieties. Should they stop selling that? What if you had to label apples, not as Gala or Fuji, but as 'Mutated bud sport of Gala' or 'Mutant bud sport of Fuji'? How do you think that would turn out for bud sports like Daybreak Fuji and Gale Gala, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with them? What this means is that better education is needed, not that we need special labels.
First, genetic engineering is a way of improving a plant. A monoculture is growing all the same thing. these are entirely different concepts. Trying to link the two only makes it look like you don't know the definition of either.
Second, how are Monsanto's seeds wrong? sure, the make Monsanto a profit, but there's nothing wrong with that. The insect resistant ones have feared pretty well, reducing pesticides and even benefiting farms that don't grow them. The herbicide tolerant ones have, for all their ill will, been environmentally positive, having reduced the need for tillage to control weeds (tillage degrades the soil quality and promotes fertilizer runoff into water systems), reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and replaced harsher herbicides.
Monsanto? Is that why anti-GE groups are protesting the publicly funded Rothamsted GE wheat trial in the UK? Is that why they complain about the Rainbow papaya, Arctic apples, Golden Rice, and BioCassava, or why groups destroyed the GE grapes in French, GE wheat in Australia, GE potatoes in the Netherlands, and GE wheat in the UK? It might be true for you, but that is minority thought. You can not play that card while the vast majority of the protest against GE crops is also applied to those that have nothing to do with Monsanto.
Picking corn to use as an example to complain about genetic alterations, now there's an irony. Do you know how many mutations and genetic alterations are in modern corn varieties (and that's completely ignoring genetic engineering), let alone all the transposons hopping around in there? If I've got, for example, a Country Gentleman sweet corn, a Golden Bantam sweet corn, a Blue Jade sweet corn, and a Ruby Queen sweet corn, just by looking at them you can tell they are obviously genetically different. Is only one corn? By your logic, we shouldn't call anything corn anymore. And why should only changes made by genetic engineering count and not everything else I listed?
Do you know what you get when you add a gene to corn? Corn. It is still corn. It isn't a new species, just a new variety.
Name me one instance where that has happened. And before you start dragging out the Schmeiser case, no, I don't mean instances where someone violated their contracts or intentionally selected for the transgenic trait. i want to know of just one case where Monsanto up and sued someone simply for being cross pollinated. People keep making that claim, that Monsanto likes to go around suing farmers (because the one thing a seed company wants is less farmers/sarcasm), but when I ask for actual examples of it happening no one can give them, although I can think of the opposite happening.
Depends on whether they actually publish their results in a peer reviewed journal or not. I looked for that study in NIH and darnedest thing, couldn't find it. As far as I know, the Ermakova study was never actually published in a peer reviewed journal. If you want to case doubt on the safety of GE crops, you're going to have to do better than that. even Andrew Wakefield managed to get his study in NIH. And for that one study, here's a couple hundred more to look over. Fact is, GE crops have been extensively tested, and there is no convincing evidence whatsoever to suggest that currently used GE crops are harmful to human health.
It isn't all that hard to tell if the food you are eating contains genetically engineered ingredients. Corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugarbeet, alfalfa, summer squash, and papaya are the only crops that have been genetically engineered, Due to the way bulk amounts of commodity crops like corn and soy are processed, if something has them one of those ingredients in it and was produced in a country that uses GE crops (like the US, Canada, Argentina, or Brazil), and is not labeled otherwise, then it is a very safe bet that it is GE. This is not very hard to remember.
The problem with mandatory labeling in many. While it is easy to claim 'right to know' the reality is a bit fuzzier if you take the time to think about it. First, we should not require regulations based on who screams the loudest, or based on simple wants. Millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, vegans, ect. have dietary restrictions, but rather than demand that food processors cater to them, they go through the market, create demand for food labeled kosher or halal or vegan, and buy that food, or simply do their homework, for example, calling to find out if the gelatin in a product came from pigs, or if the 'natural flavors' of a product were animal based. There is nothing wrong with them doing their thing, but they do not try to impose their beliefs on others either.
the second problem I have with it is that it is inconsistent and uninformative. If I say I modified my computer, what does that tell you? Nothing. If I say something is genetically engineered, what does that tell you? Does it tell you how it was changed or what gene was inserted? Nope. Furthermore, there are many ways that we alter the genetics of crops. Selective breeding, hybridization of inbred lines, marker assisted breeding, wide crossing & embryo rescue, somaclonal variation, bud sport selection, mutagenesis, induced polyploidy. There's also ways that modify the plant without affecting the genetics (grafting and tissue culture) and a host inputs that are applied to plants that you could inquire about (including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, and various plant growth regulators). To single out one thing is very inconsistent.
So, where is the 'right to know' if something was produced with mutagenesis, or to know if rice has the sd-1 gene or a tomato has the Ph3 gene, or to know if something was treated with a synthetic plant growth regulator to thin the fruit? Fact is there are too many things to possible be listed that you could know, so only important thing (like ingredients and allergens) are labeled. You want something else labeled? that's fine, do what the Jews, Muslims, and vegans do and create a free market demand for it (rmember, there is the organic label, and certification from the Non-GMO Project), but if you can't create enough market demand, don't go to the government demanding special treatment. Could you imagine the torches and pitchforks if a Muslim group said that they could not be bothered to read the Quran and find out what was Halal and Haram so they demanded mandaotry labeling?
What this whole thing really reminds me of is the 'Evolution is only a theory' stickers you see people push for in textbooks. Sure, it is true, evolution is 'only' a theory, just like a 'Contains GMOs' sticker would be true, but you know damn well that the purpose of such stickers is to case doubt on legitimate science by preying on the general public's misunderstandings and ignorance for political or ideological reasons, not to educate.
And if hybrid seed is so good, why isn't it labeled? If Haram / non-Kosher food won't send you to hell, why isn't it labeled? If food produced with mutagenesis, or somaclonal variation, or induced polyploidy, or embryo rescue, or marker assisted breeding, or mutant bud sports, or asexual propagation is so good, why isn't it labeled? GE food is not labeled for the same reason nothing else I listed is. GE corn is corn, GE soy is soy, GE canola is canola. If you want it labeled, thats fine, buy organic or create another market demand, but labels should not be legally mandated based on simple wants. Also, it is not Monsanto that does not label GE food. Monsanto produces GE seed, not the actual food, and they do label it. It is the food producers who do not label if their food was produced with GE crops, or produced with silos or tractors, or was grown with a particular input, ect. And if that lawsuit is what you are talking about, as far as I know that didn't happen.
If you think Genetic Roulette, was good, read this.. And watch this video about the author of that book. Go to 42:25 for my favorite part. The guy claims a study says that genes from GE crops integrate and become active in gut flora, when the abstract of the study says the exact opposite! My other favorite claim of his that he makes in his book is when he says that GE corn fed to pigs made the go sterile, which sounds terrible. Too bad he conveniently neglects to mention the tiny detail that the corn was infected with a mold that causes sterility in pigs. We're talking about a book of lies and deception, hardly strong evidence of documented dangers. And he's one of the most well cited and respected leaders in the anti-GMO movement. Nice.
Have you ever met someone who things programing is some arcane art and that computers are magic black boxes because they don't know much about computers? Your points seems to be the genetic equivalent of that state. No, not everything in biology is known, but what happens when you produce a GE crop is very well studied and understood. And your argument could just as easily apply to any other form of altering plant genetics. do you think Ge is the only thing that does so? It isn't even the thing that makes the largest changes.
What about people not wanting massive use of round-up chemicals
That is a very misplaced concern. Farmers, believe it or not, don't want to use massive amounts of chemicals. That comes right out of their bottom line you know. Why then do they so often buy GE seeds? Because they want to reduce the usage of chemicals, which is why GMO seeds are so popular Insect resistant ones typically lead to less use of insecticides, and the herbicide tolerant ones, while they often lead to in increase in the use of the type of herbicide they are resistant to, result in a decrease of all the other herbicide out there, most of which are worse than the ones they are resistant to. What you are saying would be like fuel efficient cars are bad because people should use less gas.
small farmers being sued out of existence
That doesn't really happen, at least not how it is commonly portrayed. First off, those are the company's customers. Why would they want less customers? Second, the only cases of lawsuits were people who knowingly (as it, it was not an accident) violated contract or patent law. It isn't as if Monsanto is just going around randomly suing small farmers just to be evil.
one corporation monopolising the entire seed supply?
A valid concern, but lets handle that via the appropriate channels, not letting politics dictate what should be a scientific process. If Monsanto could not sell non-GMO corn either, then I would think that notion played a role in this. But as far as I know that is not the case, so how can thi have anything to o with the monopoly? It is all about the science, and those concerns are just used to make the scientifically baseless opposition to GE crops seem more reasonable.
The Plant Patent Act of 1930 and the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 were in effect long before GE crops were a thing. Ever eaten a HoneyCrisp apple? those are not genetically engineered, but they were patented (the patent has since expired though). And the monopoly comes from having a large market share. How would having patents on some lines that are transgenic create a monopoly on the seed market? Remember that Monsanto (through the various companies it owns) also has a large market share for crops that are not genetically engineered.
There is so much disinformation about the drop yield of GMOs (from both sides) that I have given up trying to figure out the truth
There are no crops modified to increase intrinsic yield, just for traits that contribute to yield, so yield improvements depend on the trait and the situation. In the case of insect resistant crops, the gain is fairly modest in developed countries, something like 3-4% I think, however, this is because developed countries were already spraying pesticides. Obviously, replacing one pesticide for another, if they both work about as well, will not increase yield much. The situation is different in developing countries like South Africa, India, China, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where they might not have those pesticides to add. There they increase yields a good bit more, up to 30-40$. What the authors of studies like Failure to Yield don't get (well, judging by their very careful wording, I think the authors did get this, but tried to put a negative spin on things) is that GE crops, in developed countries anyway, are not actually meant to increase yield, they are meant to be useful in other ways, and that the modest increase in yield is just a benefit, though to be fair I'm not sure how Monsanto markets that though. They also don't get that the benefits of a GE crop in one place will be different than the benefits somewhere else.
The second type of GE crop is the herbicide tolerant ones. I'm not really certain off the top of my head how much those have contributed to yield, but again, that is not what they are meant to do anyway. They are meant to make weed control easier, although they have had some environmental benefits through promoting no-till agriculture, which prevents soil degradation and fertilizer runoff (which leads to unsophistication in aquatic environments and eventually dead zones, like the massive one in the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural runoff), and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
The last type of GE crop currently used virus resistance (well, there is another type, since Monsanto recently got its DroughtGard corn approved, but that one is not grown yet since they just got approval).. If you read up on the story of the Rainbow papaya (pdf), you will find that it saved the Hawaiian papaya industry. The papaya ringspot virus was threatening to wipe out all papaya production on the islands until the University of Hawaii developed the Rainbow papaya. Yields then increased. In terms of increasing yield, that is a very clear success story, although is often ignored by the anti-GMO groups, and when they do talk about it they consider it a failure because as a result of anti-GE fearmongering it has export issues (might makes right I guess), although those restrictions were recently lifted. And the GMO papayas have a new type of pest the non-GMO ones don't have: people with machetes.
I get how it can seem like both sides are full of it (zealous ignorant activists on one hand and a corporation with a profit motive on the other, both obviously biased and not to be fully trusted), but the general scientific consensus is that they do, in general, increase yields, at least for the insect resistant and virus resistant ones anyway.
It is a scientific fact. Whether it helps or hurts a company is not relevant. What you are saying is no different than when people dismiss the science of climate change (socialist propaganda!) because they believe it has implications that could hurt companies.
Aspartame sat sidelined by the FDA because of tests showing it was a carcinogen and neurotoxin
Citation needed. Last I checked none of those concerns turned out to have any scientific merit.
Since recent studies show that you are what you eat and food RNA can effect your genes [discovermagazine.com] the entire genetic modification of base food crops is a little worrying.
Why exactly would you expect a transgenes to be more or less likely to have an effect on you than any other gene? That study made no mention of GE crops and was just used by the anti-GE nutters Read thisthis or this for a complete take down of the nonsense that was said about that study.
Millions of years of symbiotic evolution is being altered in ways not even fully understood yet.
Do you also oppose every other method of altering plant genetics? Even conventional breeding has produced things that could not be found in nature, like corn (broccoli, strawberries, wheat, and cabbage are other crops created by humans). . And why should it matter that plants are being altered? Farms aren't exactly natural environments. And who says they are not fully understood? They are studied quite extensively, and while it is true that there could always be an unknown unknown, appeals to ignorance are not very strong arguments for rejecting known benefits.
I'm all for scientific advances but rushing to market and forcing this down people's throats is not a good attitude.
I agree that things should not be rushed for the sake of profit, but at this point, that argument holds very little water when applied to GE crops as a whole. Maybe two decades ago that would have been a more reasonable thing to say, but not anymore.
The problem with that notion is that there is just as much opposition to publically funded research as ther is corporate funded research. What do GE grapes in French, GE wheat in Australia, GE potatoes in the Netherlands, and GE wheat in the UK have in common? They were all publicly funded, and they were all attacked. The Rainbow papaya (a virus resistant GE papaya) was developed not by a corporation.but by the University of Hawaii, and you are free to save the seed, yet the anti-GMO people are against it just as much as they oppose Monsanto's crops. The same could be said for Golden Rice, which was developed for the sole purpose of helping people. I've never seen a single major anti-GMO group voice support of any GE crop, even ones that do not have the issues often used to argue against GE crops. So, you can't say that it is about licensing and patents and the like when this sort of stuff happens. It is about the science, and those issues (regardless of whether a particular topic in that area has merit) are added as secondary arguments.
In France, Monsanto need not be involved. Publicly funded non-corporate research research gets destroyed too, which is why I don't buy it when people say this is about the alleged 'evils' of Monsanto, not the science (or economics or politics as the case may be).
The problem with GM tech is that it's impossible to stop it's spread once it's out in the wild.
So, can you find me any Flavr Savr tomatoes or Starlink corn still floating around (though to be fair tomatoes are mostly self pollinating)? Or what about the GE tobacco they commercialized but took off the market in China? If they're still trying to eliminate those genes, I haven't heard about it. But, while that is true to a degree, do you realize that you could say the same of any gene, be it something brought in through a wide cross, mutagenesis, or simple a new variety from another location?
Not really. Developing new plant varieties is hard work that produces a unique and beneficial to society end produce, and developing a new plant variety is much like developing a new anything in that regard. From Luther Burbank (who was one of the early proponents of what eventually became the Plant Patent Act of 1930 and later the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970) to modern breeders and genetic engineers, they deserve some control over their work, and it helps innovation. My favorite variety of apple, SnowSweet, is patented & illegal to propagate and would likely not exist were it not for patents on life (and it is not, by the way, genetically engineered).
The cutoff is when you've done enough rigorous and open testing that nobody in the professional scientific community can raise any particular concerns.
Well, goodnews! Fact is, scientific consensus is that GE crops are safe and effective. Don't believe me? Go to your local university's agriculture, plant biology, genetics, or molecular biology/biochemistry department, or contact your local extension office (if you are in the US, you do have one). I have, and have yet to find a single person saying otherwise. Like evolution or vaccines, his is much more a popular controversy than a scientific one (discredited papers like the Pusztai study or the Séralini study notwithstanding).
The people producing the GMO's have, for example, claimed there is no risk of their product escaping into other fields, which has been proven false over and over.
Who? When? Plants cross pollinate. Everyone knows that, and problems from cross pollination are nothing new. That's why I put cheesecloth on my flowers when I garden. I grow stable lines and I don't want the to get cross pollinated, and others who grow open pollinated (or heirloom if you will) know the importance of preventing accidental pollenation. Or think of people who grow seedless fruits. What happens if you have a seedless citrus or persimmon orchard and someone decides to plant another variety? Seeds. Or what if you grow sweet corn next to field corn? The endosperm will be affected by what pollinates the corn, so your sweet corn will be ruined. So lets not act as if GE crops are the only thing where cross pollination occurs.
Each time it happens, these assholes sue the farmers whose crops get contaminated for "illegally" using their patented product.
No, they sue if you have an unnaturally large number of the transgene present, which is to say, when someone knowingly selects for the transgene (the morality of which is somewhat debatable, but lets not act as if it simply happens by accident). Can you show me a single case where they sued someone for simple cross pollination?
Then we have some very recent evidence that the rash of Colony Collapse Disorder among honey bee populations is being caused by a somewhat new pesticide. This just so happens to be the same pesticide which is integrated into the Monsanto corn, and preliminary tests indicate it DOES affect bee populations.
Absolutely false. CCD by the way occurs in areas where GE crops are not grown. The problem may be due to farming practices (like monoculture), or certain other pesticides, but there is no evidence to suggest that Bt crops are responsible in any way.
Especially when viewed in light of the other claims Monsanto has made about their product and have been shown to be false.
Which is why farmers keep buying their seed, right? Which is why we are actually seeing problems because farmers aren't planting enough non-GMO refuge area?
There just hasn't been enough testing of these products.
Everyone says this, but never says what would be considered sufficient testing. I think it is so the goalpost can keep moving.
With corporate monopoly, the danger is more from handing of control of your seed stock to a potentially malevolent vendor, than to the health of consumers.
Fixed that for you. They could be selling exclusively non-GE seed that the problems of handing too much control of the seed industry to a single company would still be there. Lets not pretend that a few transgenes is what makes that situation undesirable. That just takes concern off the real issue and blames a beneficial scapegoat.
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Some of what you describe is the nature of the seed industry, and has been for a while, so I don't quite think it is fair to single out GE crops. All agricultural improvements come from diversity and by their nature reduce diversity. It is no different than any superior conventionally bred traits. Another thing is that there are quite a number of varieties that have the trait. I picked one random seed vendor that carries RR soybeans and they listed numerous varieties with the trait. Monsanto isn't stupid. Do you think the geneticists developing the lines never heard of the Irish Potato Famine, or the TMSC corn failure of the 70's, or the fall of the Gros Michael banana?
The case you describe about the cost, as far as I know, is not true. I'm fairly certain they are of net economic benefit to the farmers. Also, unlike the Bt crops, I don't know if herbicide tolerant crops actually preform much better, they just make it easier to control yields. The weeds you mention are a problem, but again, the first recorded resistant weed occurred in decades ago, and ever since weeds have developed resistances to various herbicides. These problems, aside from again not being exclusive to GE crops therefore not to be used as an argument against them unless you're going to argue against a whole lot more, are ones that should be solved by improved cultivation practices (like rotations) and the use of a multiple herbicides with multiple modes of action to mitigate the odds of resistance successfully emerging. This is also why we need a better approval process for GE crops. As it stands regulatory burdens are very strict, so only two herbicide tolerant varieties are out there: Monsanto's Round-Up Ready and Syngenta's Liberty Link (which I'll add is always an option of one dislikes Monsanto). Lower barriers to entry would create more much needed competition. And considering the environmental benefits of no till that have been facilitated by GE crops, I wouldn't say no one wins.
I did not know that was the reason behind the .docx thing.
No one disagrees that information is good, but the question still remains, why single out one thing and ignore the rest, and furthermore, if the information is freely available, relatively easily accessible, and non-essential, why should it be labeled instead by law of being left to consumers to seek it out or not?
I was referring to those asinine textbook stickers designed not to inform of the fact that evolution is indeed a theory but to cast doubt upon its validity by singling it out and preying on public ignorance as to what the word theory actually means, which is similar to what the proposed mandatory labels for genetically engineered food seeks to do: spread FUD and create a controversy for a non-scientific reason.
And maybe you should look up what some of those mutations are if you thin genetic engineering is the only way to create herbicide resistance. Or maybe instead of labeling them 'engineered to resist herbicides' they should label them as 'This crop was produced in a manner which promotes no-till farming which prevents eutrophication in of aquatic environments, sequesters carbon, and prevents greenhouse gas emission.' Because that would also be true. Strange that no one is pushing for those labels, I wonder why? At any rate, it still isn't a reason why one should be treated different in terms of labeling.
(which exacerbates disease and lowers productivity in general)
Yes to the first, no to the second. It is pretty easy to understand why monoculture is bad from a disease management standpoint. It creates a great environment for a handful of pests to absolutely thrive. If a potato problem becomes big in an area where it is just nothing but potatoes, and especially if they are generically uniform, then it is like dropping a match in a tinderbox (like the Irish Potato Famine), however, if the potatoes are interspersed with other varieties of potatoes it decreases the chance of disease spread and if they are interspersed with other species it really hinders or even stops it. So yes, monoculture is bad in that respect. But lets not ignore the benefits of economies of scale either. Growing nothing but the same thing allows easier harvesting, planting, and management. There is a reason farmers are willing to use it, and it isn't because they loose yield. I'm a big fan of biodiversity myself, there are so many crop species that could offer so much benefit that we simply don't use it is ridiculous (though that's a rant for another time), but for its flaws monoculture does bring benefits. It is also worth noting that even in big fields of the same crop farmers aren't stupid. they sow different varieties, for example, late and early yielding soybeans to hedge against an early frost.
I disagree about the Bullshit! episode, although they did touch on other issues besides GE crops. What Norman Borlaug actually said was that with only organic we couldn't feed the world, not without GE crops. We might be able to feed the world without them (some people would probably starve though), although as the global population rises water gets scarcer and fertilizer & energy prices rise and peak phosphorus draws closer and climate change rears its ugly head, feeding the world while being picky in which tools we use (including biotechnology, biodiversity, chemical inputs, and biological controls) to do so becomes an increasingly irrational and implausible notion.
As far as I am concerned, if they can't sell it for what it is, then they shouldn't be selling it.
And if people can't label evolution as what it is, just a theory, then they shouldn't be teaching it. See what I did there? Just because groups lie about it enough such that a largely ignorant about the topic population is scared doesn't mean it should be treated specially. What if you labeled bread as 'This product contains mutagen produced wheat'? Think people would like that? Probably not, yet that applies to somewhere around 80% of all wheat varieties. Should they stop selling that? What if you had to label apples, not as Gala or Fuji, but as 'Mutated bud sport of Gala' or 'Mutant bud sport of Fuji'? How do you think that would turn out for bud sports like Daybreak Fuji and Gale Gala, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with them? What this means is that better education is needed, not that we need special labels.
First, genetic engineering is a way of improving a plant. A monoculture is growing all the same thing. these are entirely different concepts. Trying to link the two only makes it look like you don't know the definition of either.
Second, how are Monsanto's seeds wrong? sure, the make Monsanto a profit, but there's nothing wrong with that. The insect resistant ones have feared pretty well, reducing pesticides and even benefiting farms that don't grow them. The herbicide tolerant ones have, for all their ill will, been environmentally positive, having reduced the need for tillage to control weeds (tillage degrades the soil quality and promotes fertilizer runoff into water systems), reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and replaced harsher herbicides.
Monsanto? Is that why anti-GE groups are protesting the publicly funded Rothamsted GE wheat trial in the UK? Is that why they complain about the Rainbow papaya, Arctic apples, Golden Rice, and BioCassava, or why groups destroyed the GE grapes in French, GE wheat in Australia, GE potatoes in the Netherlands, and GE wheat in the UK? It might be true for you, but that is minority thought. You can not play that card while the vast majority of the protest against GE crops is also applied to those that have nothing to do with Monsanto.
Picking corn to use as an example to complain about genetic alterations, now there's an irony. Do you know how many mutations and genetic alterations are in modern corn varieties (and that's completely ignoring genetic engineering), let alone all the transposons hopping around in there? If I've got, for example, a Country Gentleman sweet corn, a Golden Bantam sweet corn, a Blue Jade sweet corn, and a Ruby Queen sweet corn, just by looking at them you can tell they are obviously genetically different. Is only one corn? By your logic, we shouldn't call anything corn anymore. And why should only changes made by genetic engineering count and not everything else I listed?
Do you know what you get when you add a gene to corn? Corn. It is still corn. It isn't a new species, just a new variety.
Name me one instance where that has happened. And before you start dragging out the Schmeiser case, no, I don't mean instances where someone violated their contracts or intentionally selected for the transgenic trait. i want to know of just one case where Monsanto up and sued someone simply for being cross pollinated. People keep making that claim, that Monsanto likes to go around suing farmers (because the one thing a seed company wants is less farmers /sarcasm), but when I ask for actual examples of it happening no one can give them, although I can think of the opposite happening.
And what about scientists who say it is harmful
Depends on whether they actually publish their results in a peer reviewed journal or not. I looked for that study in NIH and darnedest thing, couldn't find it. As far as I know, the Ermakova study was never actually published in a peer reviewed journal. If you want to case doubt on the safety of GE crops, you're going to have to do better than that. even Andrew Wakefield managed to get his study in NIH. And for that one study, here's a couple hundred more to look over. Fact is, GE crops have been extensively tested, and there is no convincing evidence whatsoever to suggest that currently used GE crops are harmful to human health.
It isn't all that hard to tell if the food you are eating contains genetically engineered ingredients. Corn, soy, cotton, canola, sugarbeet, alfalfa, summer squash, and papaya are the only crops that have been genetically engineered, Due to the way bulk amounts of commodity crops like corn and soy are processed, if something has them one of those ingredients in it and was produced in a country that uses GE crops (like the US, Canada, Argentina, or Brazil), and is not labeled otherwise, then it is a very safe bet that it is GE. This is not very hard to remember.
The problem with mandatory labeling in many. While it is easy to claim 'right to know' the reality is a bit fuzzier if you take the time to think about it. First, we should not require regulations based on who screams the loudest, or based on simple wants. Millions of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, vegans, ect. have dietary restrictions, but rather than demand that food processors cater to them, they go through the market, create demand for food labeled kosher or halal or vegan, and buy that food, or simply do their homework, for example, calling to find out if the gelatin in a product came from pigs, or if the 'natural flavors' of a product were animal based. There is nothing wrong with them doing their thing, but they do not try to impose their beliefs on others either.
the second problem I have with it is that it is inconsistent and uninformative. If I say I modified my computer, what does that tell you? Nothing. If I say something is genetically engineered, what does that tell you? Does it tell you how it was changed or what gene was inserted? Nope. Furthermore, there are many ways that we alter the genetics of crops. Selective breeding, hybridization of inbred lines, marker assisted breeding, wide crossing & embryo rescue, somaclonal variation, bud sport selection, mutagenesis, induced polyploidy. There's also ways that modify the plant without affecting the genetics (grafting and tissue culture) and a host inputs that are applied to plants that you could inquire about (including insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers, and various plant growth regulators). To single out one thing is very inconsistent.
So, where is the 'right to know' if something was produced with mutagenesis, or to know if rice has the sd-1 gene or a tomato has the Ph3 gene, or to know if something was treated with a synthetic plant growth regulator to thin the fruit? Fact is there are too many things to possible be listed that you could know, so only important thing (like ingredients and allergens) are labeled. You want something else labeled? that's fine, do what the Jews, Muslims, and vegans do and create a free market demand for it (rmember, there is the organic label, and certification from the Non-GMO Project), but if you can't create enough market demand, don't go to the government demanding special treatment. Could you imagine the torches and pitchforks if a Muslim group said that they could not be bothered to read the Quran and find out what was Halal and Haram so they demanded mandaotry labeling?
What this whole thing really reminds me of is the 'Evolution is only a theory' stickers you see people push for in textbooks. Sure, it is true, evolution is 'only' a theory, just like a 'Contains GMOs' sticker would be true, but you know damn well that the purpose of such stickers is to case doubt on legitimate science by preying on the general public's misunderstandings and ignorance for political or ideological reasons, not to educate.
And if hybrid seed is so good, why isn't it labeled? If Haram / non-Kosher food won't send you to hell, why isn't it labeled? If food produced with mutagenesis, or somaclonal variation, or induced polyploidy, or embryo rescue, or marker assisted breeding, or mutant bud sports, or asexual propagation is so good, why isn't it labeled? GE food is not labeled for the same reason nothing else I listed is. GE corn is corn, GE soy is soy, GE canola is canola. If you want it labeled, thats fine, buy organic or create another market demand, but labels should not be legally mandated based on simple wants. Also, it is not Monsanto that does not label GE food. Monsanto produces GE seed, not the actual food, and they do label it. It is the food producers who do not label if their food was produced with GE crops, or produced with silos or tractors, or was grown with a particular input, ect. And if that lawsuit is what you are talking about, as far as I know that didn't happen.
If you think Genetic Roulette, was good, read this.. And watch this video about the author of that book. Go to 42:25 for my favorite part. The guy claims a study says that genes from GE crops integrate and become active in gut flora, when the abstract of the study says the exact opposite! My other favorite claim of his that he makes in his book is when he says that GE corn fed to pigs made the go sterile, which sounds terrible. Too bad he conveniently neglects to mention the tiny detail that the corn was infected with a mold that causes sterility in pigs. We're talking about a book of lies and deception, hardly strong evidence of documented dangers. And he's one of the most well cited and respected leaders in the anti-GMO movement. Nice.
Have you ever met someone who things programing is some arcane art and that computers are magic black boxes because they don't know much about computers? Your points seems to be the genetic equivalent of that state. No, not everything in biology is known, but what happens when you produce a GE crop is very well studied and understood. And your argument could just as easily apply to any other form of altering plant genetics. do you think Ge is the only thing that does so? It isn't even the thing that makes the largest changes.
What about people not wanting massive use of round-up chemicals
That is a very misplaced concern. Farmers, believe it or not, don't want to use massive amounts of chemicals. That comes right out of their bottom line you know. Why then do they so often buy GE seeds? Because they want to reduce the usage of chemicals, which is why GMO seeds are so popular Insect resistant ones typically lead to less use of insecticides, and the herbicide tolerant ones, while they often lead to in increase in the use of the type of herbicide they are resistant to, result in a decrease of all the other herbicide out there, most of which are worse than the ones they are resistant to. What you are saying would be like fuel efficient cars are bad because people should use less gas.
small farmers being sued out of existence
That doesn't really happen, at least not how it is commonly portrayed. First off, those are the company's customers. Why would they want less customers? Second, the only cases of lawsuits were people who knowingly (as it, it was not an accident) violated contract or patent law. It isn't as if Monsanto is just going around randomly suing small farmers just to be evil.
one corporation monopolising the entire seed supply?
A valid concern, but lets handle that via the appropriate channels, not letting politics dictate what should be a scientific process. If Monsanto could not sell non-GMO corn either, then I would think that notion played a role in this. But as far as I know that is not the case, so how can thi have anything to o with the monopoly? It is all about the science, and those concerns are just used to make the scientifically baseless opposition to GE crops seem more reasonable.
The Plant Patent Act of 1930 and the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970 were in effect long before GE crops were a thing. Ever eaten a HoneyCrisp apple? those are not genetically engineered, but they were patented (the patent has since expired though). And the monopoly comes from having a large market share. How would having patents on some lines that are transgenic create a monopoly on the seed market? Remember that Monsanto (through the various companies it owns) also has a large market share for crops that are not genetically engineered.
There is so much disinformation about the drop yield of GMOs (from both sides) that I have given up trying to figure out the truth
There are no crops modified to increase intrinsic yield, just for traits that contribute to yield, so yield improvements depend on the trait and the situation. In the case of insect resistant crops, the gain is fairly modest in developed countries, something like 3-4% I think, however, this is because developed countries were already spraying pesticides. Obviously, replacing one pesticide for another, if they both work about as well, will not increase yield much. The situation is different in developing countries like South Africa, India, China, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil, where they might not have those pesticides to add. There they increase yields a good bit more, up to 30-40$. What the authors of studies like Failure to Yield don't get (well, judging by their very careful wording, I think the authors did get this, but tried to put a negative spin on things) is that GE crops, in developed countries anyway, are not actually meant to increase yield, they are meant to be useful in other ways, and that the modest increase in yield is just a benefit, though to be fair I'm not sure how Monsanto markets that though. They also don't get that the benefits of a GE crop in one place will be different than the benefits somewhere else.
The second type of GE crop is the herbicide tolerant ones. I'm not really certain off the top of my head how much those have contributed to yield, but again, that is not what they are meant to do anyway. They are meant to make weed control easier, although they have had some environmental benefits through promoting no-till agriculture, which prevents soil degradation and fertilizer runoff (which leads to unsophistication in aquatic environments and eventually dead zones, like the massive one in the Gulf of Mexico due to agricultural runoff), and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
The last type of GE crop currently used virus resistance (well, there is another type, since Monsanto recently got its DroughtGard corn approved, but that one is not grown yet since they just got approval).. If you read up on the story of the Rainbow papaya (pdf), you will find that it saved the Hawaiian papaya industry. The papaya ringspot virus was threatening to wipe out all papaya production on the islands until the University of Hawaii developed the Rainbow papaya. Yields then increased. In terms of increasing yield, that is a very clear success story, although is often ignored by the anti-GMO groups, and when they do talk about it they consider it a failure because as a result of anti-GE fearmongering it has export issues (might makes right I guess), although those restrictions were recently lifted. And the GMO papayas have a new type of pest the non-GMO ones don't have: people with machetes.
I get how it can seem like both sides are full of it (zealous ignorant activists on one hand and a corporation with a profit motive on the other, both obviously biased and not to be fully trusted), but the general scientific consensus is that they do, in general, increase yields, at least for the insect resistant and virus resistant ones anyway.
It is a scientific fact. Whether it helps or hurts a company is not relevant. What you are saying is no different than when people dismiss the science of climate change (socialist propaganda!) because they believe it has implications that could hurt companies.
Aspartame sat sidelined by the FDA because of tests showing it was a carcinogen and neurotoxin
Citation needed. Last I checked none of those concerns turned out to have any scientific merit.
Since recent studies show that you are what you eat and food RNA can effect your genes [discovermagazine.com] the entire genetic modification of base food crops is a little worrying.
Why exactly would you expect a transgenes to be more or less likely to have an effect on you than any other gene? That study made no mention of GE crops and was just used by the anti-GE nutters Read this this or this for a complete take down of the nonsense that was said about that study.
Millions of years of symbiotic evolution is being altered in ways not even fully understood yet.
Do you also oppose every other method of altering plant genetics? Even conventional breeding has produced things that could not be found in nature, like corn (broccoli, strawberries, wheat, and cabbage are other crops created by humans). . And why should it matter that plants are being altered? Farms aren't exactly natural environments. And who says they are not fully understood? They are studied quite extensively, and while it is true that there could always be an unknown unknown, appeals to ignorance are not very strong arguments for rejecting known benefits.
I'm all for scientific advances but rushing to market and forcing this down people's throats is not a good attitude.
I agree that things should not be rushed for the sake of profit, but at this point, that argument holds very little water when applied to GE crops as a whole. Maybe two decades ago that would have been a more reasonable thing to say, but not anymore.
The actual problem is licensing and economics.
The problem with that notion is that there is just as much opposition to publically funded research as ther is corporate funded research. What do GE grapes in French, GE wheat in Australia, GE potatoes in the Netherlands, and GE wheat in the UK have in common? They were all publicly funded, and they were all attacked. The Rainbow papaya (a virus resistant GE papaya) was developed not by a corporation.but by the University of Hawaii, and you are free to save the seed, yet the anti-GMO people are against it just as much as they oppose Monsanto's crops. The same could be said for Golden Rice, which was developed for the sole purpose of helping people. I've never seen a single major anti-GMO group voice support of any GE crop, even ones that do not have the issues often used to argue against GE crops. So, you can't say that it is about licensing and patents and the like when this sort of stuff happens. It is about the science, and those issues (regardless of whether a particular topic in that area has merit) are added as secondary arguments.
In France, Monsanto need not be involved. Publicly funded non-corporate research research gets destroyed too, which is why I don't buy it when people say this is about the alleged 'evils' of Monsanto, not the science (or economics or politics as the case may be).
The problem with GM tech is that it's impossible to stop it's spread once it's out in the wild.
So, can you find me any Flavr Savr tomatoes or Starlink corn still floating around (though to be fair tomatoes are mostly self pollinating)? Or what about the GE tobacco they commercialized but took off the market in China? If they're still trying to eliminate those genes, I haven't heard about it. But, while that is true to a degree, do you realize that you could say the same of any gene, be it something brought in through a wide cross, mutagenesis, or simple a new variety from another location?
Not really. Developing new plant varieties is hard work that produces a unique and beneficial to society end produce, and developing a new plant variety is much like developing a new anything in that regard. From Luther Burbank (who was one of the early proponents of what eventually became the Plant Patent Act of 1930 and later the Plant Variety Protection Act of 1970) to modern breeders and genetic engineers, they deserve some control over their work, and it helps innovation. My favorite variety of apple, SnowSweet, is patented & illegal to propagate and would likely not exist were it not for patents on life (and it is not, by the way, genetically engineered).
The cutoff is when you've done enough rigorous and open testing that nobody in the professional scientific community can raise any particular concerns.
Well, good news! Fact is, scientific consensus is that GE crops are safe and effective. Don't believe me? Go to your local university's agriculture, plant biology, genetics, or molecular biology/biochemistry department, or contact your local extension office (if you are in the US, you do have one). I have, and have yet to find a single person saying otherwise. Like evolution or vaccines, his is much more a popular controversy than a scientific one (discredited papers like the Pusztai study or the Séralini study notwithstanding).
The people producing the GMO's have, for example, claimed there is no risk of their product escaping into other fields, which has been proven false over and over.
Who? When? Plants cross pollinate. Everyone knows that, and problems from cross pollination are nothing new. That's why I put cheesecloth on my flowers when I garden. I grow stable lines and I don't want the to get cross pollinated, and others who grow open pollinated (or heirloom if you will) know the importance of preventing accidental pollenation. Or think of people who grow seedless fruits. What happens if you have a seedless citrus or persimmon orchard and someone decides to plant another variety? Seeds. Or what if you grow sweet corn next to field corn? The endosperm will be affected by what pollinates the corn, so your sweet corn will be ruined. So lets not act as if GE crops are the only thing where cross pollination occurs.
Each time it happens, these assholes sue the farmers whose crops get contaminated for "illegally" using their patented product.
No, they sue if you have an unnaturally large number of the transgene present, which is to say, when someone knowingly selects for the transgene (the morality of which is somewhat debatable, but lets not act as if it simply happens by accident). Can you show me a single case where they sued someone for simple cross pollination?
Then we have some very recent evidence that the rash of Colony Collapse Disorder among honey bee populations is being caused by a somewhat new pesticide. This just so happens to be the same pesticide which is integrated into the Monsanto corn, and preliminary tests indicate it DOES affect bee populations.
Absolutely false. CCD by the way occurs in areas where GE crops are not grown. The problem may be due to farming practices (like monoculture), or certain other pesticides, but there is no evidence to suggest that Bt crops are responsible in any way.
Especially when viewed in light of the other claims Monsanto has made about their product and have been shown to be false.
Which is why farmers keep buying their seed, right? Which is why we are actually seeing problems because farmers aren't planting enough non-GMO refuge area?
There just hasn't been enough testing of these products.
Everyone says this, but never says what would be considered sufficient testing. I think it is so the goalpost can keep moving.
With corporate monopoly, the danger is more from handing of control of your seed stock to a potentially malevolent vendor, than to the health of consumers.
Fixed that for you. They could be selling exclusively non-GE seed that the problems of handing too much control of the seed industry to a single company would still be there. Lets not pretend that a few transgenes is what makes that situation undesirable. That just takes concern off the real issue and blames a beneficial scapegoat.
Because Monsanto has been so successful in India and South America, right?
They have been actually. Well, their seed has been anyway.