I'm always a pretty critical thinker and always question the source, but based on everything I've seen and read on this topic this seems to be the real deal
Then read this. 60 farmers. Not 300,000. Think critical about this: is a movement that lies to you going to give you good information about Monsanto and genetic engineering?
Is Monsanto the best company int the world? No. Are they the great Satan they're made out to be? They're not that either. The reason you see so much hate for Monsanto is because GE crops work. They work well, farmers are neither stupid nor powerless and they buy GE seed for a reason, and they're safe. If, for some reason, you dislike genetic engineering, there's only one way to reconcile these facts with you're superstitions: conspiracy. Think about how anti-vaxxers describe Merck or Pfizer, or what creationists say about evolutionary biologists. Same thing. I'm certainly not saying you should take anything Monsanto says at face value, be skeptical about them too, but 99% of what you hear about them is, quite frankly, just bullshit by the scientifically illiterate anti-GMO crowd.
I hope not. There is only 60 farmers suing. The 300,000 number comes form the number of members in the plaintiff organizations. So, if you sign up for the Cornucopia Institute's magazine or whatever, they you're being counted as one of the farmers suing. The 300,000 farmers thing is flat out wrong. Not that anyone cares. When it comes to GMOs, people tend to turn off their brain. I suppose it is a side effect of our population moving away from the land. Agricultural misinformation tends to spread when no one even knows a farmer anymore. This is what pisses me off about the state of genetic engineering. So many people are against it, and I think it is because so many people flat out lie about them.
Let's just say I grow Red Kuri squash. I get a premium for it. Then my neighbor grows Blue Hubbard. It cross pollinates. My seed is now a hybrid, no longer the pure OP line. What if I grow seedless citrus, then my neighbor grows some citrus of another variety. they cross pollinate, now I have seeds in my citrus. Should I have the right to sue? I don't think so. Cross pollination is cross pollination, and it doesn't just apply in GE crops. What if I grow rice and have a special market for people who believe science is evil and don't want the naturally occurring sd-1 gene 'contaminating' their rice, and my modern variety growing neighbor's plants cross with mine and now sd-1 is expressed in some of my rice? Why is it that farmers have been able to deal with these problems for years, then organic growers come along and suddenly there's talk of lawsuits? Think about what being able to sue for cross pollination really means. It's absolutely absurd if you know anything about agriculture.
There is no reasonable way to separate them from those whose crops were planted by creatures or wind -- unless you actually catch the cheater in the act. It is unconscionable to let the law stand by evidence of possession alone.
It pretty easy actually. If a farmer hasn't purchased Round-Up Ready seed, but is still buying and spraying massive amounts of Round-Up, chances are something's up, and it wasn't an accident. They don't go around suing people for cross pollination; they sue when someone knowingly selected for a trait and planted in throughout their field. It's pretty easy to not get sued by them.
Actually, another company that they bought developed it. They're not lying; you're just uninformed.
I wish they would have commercialized it too. Then people wouldn't be complaining over this issue. Granted, then they'd be complaining about how farmers have to buy seed every year instead of save them Of course, that's been happening since hybrid seed became big in the 30's, but hey, who has time for meaningless things like facts?
Tainted? Contaminated? Nice use of weasel words. So, why would Monsanto want to waste time suing people who don't buy their product? What would be then end goal? That would be like a Tyson Chicken suing vegetarians. There'd be no point. Seriously, do you even think about this? When they DO sue is when someone gets cross pollinated, INTENTIONALLY selects for the gene, then grows it. It's a big difference, one that anti-GMO groupstry to avoid mentioning mentioning....cause, you know, being misleading is the best way to make a point.
Interestingly, the "pesticide-built-in" plants are already losing their effect on pests which are now becoming "super-pests."
Its not interesting at all. It happens all the time. Plants are bred with a resistance, insects overcome it, rinse and repeat. What buggers me is that no one cares if we have a problem with, say, wheat and hessian fly, but if something does the EXACT SAME THING in a GE crop, then suddenly it is news. And they're not superpests. they resistant to one form of killing them. That hardly makes them super. Bt doesn't hurt me either, but I'm no Superman.
It's amazing to me that current science fails to appreciate the power of nature to overcome our tweaking and fiddling.
Yes, that's right, science is bad and doesn't understand, the mantra of every superstitious quack on the planet. Listen, anyone who knows jack about population genetics and evolution saw this coming. It was the management practices that created overly strong selection pressure. Don't blame the corn because farmers liked the GE varieties too much to plant refuge areas.
It's not necessarily only about whether it is "safe for human consumption."
It isn't about that at all. here is a complete list of all available evidence suggesting GE crops are dangerous:
There are other considerations that make GM foods like these a BAD IDEA.
Pretty wide brush there. Given that your previous considerations applied to every other crop as well, I'm guessing you don't actually have any other considerations that mean much.
This summary is absolute bullshit. There's only 60 farmers in the lawsuit! The rest of the people are members of the plaintiff organizations! That 300,000 number is a flat out lie. What is wrong with doing a little fact checking?
Good call. You're right. If you actually look into this thing, you'll see that the lawsuit represents only 60 farmers. It is the organizations that have over 300,000 members. So, to make it look like farmers really hate GMOs (guess what, they don't, ask one sometime), they count every member as a farmer. There's less than a million farmers in the US. Basically, this is just the anti-GMO people being lying assholes on par with anti-vaxxers and evolution deniers, and unfortunately, most people know jack about agriculture they think that numbers like that are actually realistic. Yep, 1/3 farmers hate Monsanto, yet over 90% of some crops are their GE seed. How did this nonsense get called news?
First, 2,4-D is already commonly used for weed control.
Second, you're thinking of the corn engineered to resist it that may soon be on the market, not the chemical itself.
Third, that was Dow, not Monsanto.
Fourth, 2,4-D was an ingredient in Agent Orange. So was water, but no one complains that Pepsi has Agent Orange ingredients in it.. Neither was the source of the problems it is famous for.
Fifth, herbicides don't contribute to resistant insects. You're confusing two entirely separate issues.
Sixth, I love what passes for interesting about agriculture nowadays.
I thought the claimed reduction in use of pesticides with GM crops was widely questioned
Well, it is widely questioned, just not by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about. There's plentyofinfo on the subject, and strangely the only ones disputing that are either some organic woo-mongering organization or outright quacks, and usually their evidence is pretty flimsy. They claim that GE crops, with an anti-insect protein, require higher pesticide usage? Even if the GE protein was totally ineffective (which is false) how the heck does the addition of that extra protein make the crops need more pesticides? That doesn't even make sense. Well, not scientifically, but if you think genetic engineering is some magical black box with crazy Hollywood effects, then it must be perfectly rational. GE crops have actually reduced pesticides so much in some places that non-target insects (that is to say, non-lepidopterans, as only they are effected by the currently used pest resistance trait) that were once controlled by broad-spectrum pesticides have for the first time become pests. The claim that GE crops increase pesticide use, sorry, absolute bullshit.
Now, two points of clarity, first, they have promoted an increase in use of certain herbicides. The Round-Up Ready ones, obviously, go hand in hand with an increase in Round-Up, and Liberty Link with Liberty. This sounds like a pretty good argument against them, until you consider that they do this at the benefit of replacing other, more environmentally harmful herbicides (as well as promoting no-till practices). Yes, spraying herbicides is bad, but this isn't a case of choice 1 vs the ideal, it is realistic choice 1 vs realistic choice 2, and for better or worse, the herbicide resistant ones, for all the ill will they get, come out on top. The other caveat is that, yes, some insects have developed resistance to the insect resistant GE trait. Ironically, anti-GE groups are quick to point this out, but (since they know bugger all about population genetics) don't understand that this is evidence that the GE trait is working. You don't create population shifts without selection pressure, and you don't get selection pressure by not working. If this resistance becomes widespread, the GE plants still will not need more pesticides, but they will lose the advantages they provide, which would be bad. It should be noted that this is not the fault of the plants themselves, rather, management practices, and over-reliance on a single trait, and also, that such instances are not unique to GE crops. Selection pressure is selection pressure and evolution doesn't care where it came from. Problems of resistance have happened before, and will happen again, GE or not.
The notion that people are against GE crops for patent reasons is a good one, but considering how how many plants are patented that go unprotested, it cannot be entirely true, though I'm sure it plays a role for those who know bugger all about plant breeding (which accurately describes most people who oppose GE crops). Lots of plants are under patent, and I don't see anyone complaining about them. when the Honeycrisp apple or Flavor Grenade Pluot came out, no one cared that they were patented (Honeycrisp's has since expired btw, and the royalties the breeders received from it went on to create my personal favorite apple variety, Snow Sweet, which is also patented). When the USDA announced the HoneySweet plum, or when Okanagan Specialty Fruits announced the Arctic apple, people did, and when they're released, you can bet there'll be backlash. Why, when they were pretty much the same things, and both under patent (though the HoneySweet might be free to prop
I can't help but thing of when there were demands for removing the prohibition of cannabis brought up on the site. The official response wasn't anything of honestly leveling with the people so much as basically telling everyone that they didn't care what we think and everyone should just piss off, with a heaping helping of vacuous crap. I highly doubt this will be any different. Sure they'll respond, but odds are it will be with some hollow & meaningless response, and in the end no action will be taken.
That's an interesting take on it, but what I'm saying would be more akin to saying 'Urea produced in your body is the same as artificially produced urea from a flask.' Very different process yes, but if you're evaluating the urea, that does not matter. Granted, you're not producing the exact same things here, but you should still focus stronger on the end result than how you got there.
But still there's a chance of diseases an parasites missed or adapting to the modified organisms.
More than just a chance; it's already happened. However, this really isn't a point against genetic engineering as many would think. This can, and has, happened before. Weeds have developed resistances to herbicides and pests have overcome plant resistances. When you apply selection pressure to a system, you will create a genetic shift, and population genetics doesn't care how that selection pressure was created. Look at wheat and hessian flies for example. No genetic engineering involved, but you still get resistances. This is a bit more complected than it is made out to be by the people making cries of 'superweeds.'
I don't think it's all about genetic engineering in general, but how it can be used (and misused) by profit seeking corporations.
I'm sure that anti-corporate sentiment is a part of it, but not the whole thing. Most of the opposition to GE crops includes opposition to non-corporate GE crops. There's tons of opposition to Golden Rice for example. There's opposition to the Rainbow papaya, produced by the University of Hawaii. Some have already come out in opposition of the HoneySweet plum, produced by the USDA. In Australia, low GI wheat being developed by CSIRO was destroyed by Greenpeace thugs, and in Europe, potatoes being developed by the University of Ghent, grapes funded by the French government, and others have been destroyed too. Even those from small companies, like the Arctic apples and AqquaAdvantage salmon are getting opposed. I'm not disagreeing with the anti-corporate angle, but that is not the only part of it if people are opposing non-corporate GE crops too.
According to my sources (various newspapers) the reality looks a bit different: The Indian farmers experienced a crop shortfalls due a fungus. The ones that stole Bt cotton most likely expected a wonder like the ones who purchased it because the advertisements from Monsanto promised exactly that wonder.
I'm not really sure to what degree Monsanto has advertised in India, and I really can't give any generalities on the general situation. I know that there are some farmers who have had great success with those seeds, while others have had problems like drought, or economic issues (there are some government policies in some Indian states that are pretty nasty for the farmers). Don't mistake me for trying to defend Monsanto, I just support the use of the technology, which I have no reason to think did not do its job in any of those cases. A new hybrid from parent plants not adapted to the local environment could, for example, contribute to a failed yield (even though not taking that into consideration is pretty sub-standard since they usually do consider that), I suppose, but this is hybridization, not genetic engineering.
I'm sure many farmers are still willing to buy GE seed, as they expect more yield. But many of the farmers have no other chances: In the USA and possibly in other countries too it's nearly impossible to get unmodified seed for corn. And if you get unmodified seed you'll face the risk of contamination with GE seed and be sued for unauthorized use of GE seed. Or you can't simply find a seed washer because most of them got sued.
I've never actually looked, but I would be surprised if that were the case. Keep in mind that, when growing Bt crops, you need to plant a certain area of refuge area crops (crops without the trait) to prevent pests from developing resistances. So, there's still plenty out there for people who want it. With the lawsuits, for many growers that doesn't normally apply. If you're growing hybrid seed, you won't be saving it anyway (long story short, hybrid seed is unstable beyond the second generation). I coul
I do happen to know a bit about the stuff Jeffrey Smith says. He's pretty famous for being one of the top anti-GE campaigners out there, and I recognize a few of the things he cites. Although he gets plenty of publicity, he doesn't exactly have the best reputation for honesty and scientific integrity.
First, neither Surov study nor the Ermakova study he cites (and derives many of his claims from) were ever actually published. From what information they have released, it seems that Surov as I recall only used five hamsters, and he used some weird variety with strange dietary requirements that no one uses for feeding trials, and the Ermakova study had rats dying, even in the control group, at way higher rates than they should have. I can't remember all the details without looking it up, but those studies don't mean much. The Austrian study he cites was actually withdrawn for its flaws, but that doesn't stop Smith from citing that too (and naturally leaving out the bit about its withdrawal).
And he mentions an anecdote about livestock eating GE feed and becoming sterile. If he's talking about the same instance I'm thinking of, this one actually happened. They fed livestock GE feed and they went sterile. That sounds pretty bad, but again, Smith conveniently leaves out that this feed was infected with a mold that produces sterility inducing mycotoxins, and that this while not frequent is not an unheard of occurrence in livestock, and it can happen regardless of whether the corn is GE or not. The thing that he seems to be citing claiming DNA damage, after a quick lookover, doesn't appear to actually say anything of the sort.
So, yeah, that's the best he's got. Not very impressive, and unfortunately, he's one of the biggest names in the anti-GE movement, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen claims of harm from GE crops go straight back to something he wrote. He is very fond of cherrypicking and half truths mixed up in alarmist rhetoric, and makes no mention of any of the studies showing no harm from GE crops. If you're interested, a professor from the University of Melbourne has a pretty comprehensive takedown of one of his books, and this video goes over some more of his claims. I'm not usually in the habit of linking to YouTube since they're usually pretty poor but this one actually has clips of what Smith says about something, then shows the study itself saying the exact opposite, which I find funny, and it has lots of good citations if you ever want to look them over or read a long boring FDA report.
So that claim, and the rest, aren't something I'd be all that concerned about.
Kind of. With cross pollination, that happens. Every plant does it. The only difference is that now people care. That's more of a people issue than a plant one. I really don't much see how it is too big of an issue myself, because if you're growing hybrid seed you're probably going to buy new seed next year, and if you're growing OP seed then you aren't going to want any cross pollinated seed anyway.
As for escape into the wild and other environmental concerns, this is potentially problematic, however, it is equally probable that conventional breeding could have similar issues, and it really depends on where you are too, and what crop. Most crops really aren't that weedy and aren't going to overrun an ecosystem (canola seems to do pretty well though, but herbicide tolerance isn't going to give it much of an advantage in the wild over non-GE escaped canola, which is a man made crop to begin with), and they're only going to cross with wild plants if they're being grown where the crop originates. For example, GE corn in Germany isn't going anywhere, end of story. You also have to weigh the benefits against the risks. GE crops have been good for the environment, and while they may cause harm, you have to balance those two, not consider only one. And so far, none of the ecological disasters that anti-GE folks said would happen have materialized.
So, even if we consider the environment, GE crops are pretty safe.
In many parts of Africa, it isn't so much fear of the crops themselves (although I'm sure there is some of that too, especially among wealthy Africans) as it is fear of losing their export market to Europe. Some African countries really need that market, so because Europe rejects GE crops, then in order to prevent their ability to export to Europe secure, those countries ban GE crops as well. This basically means that because Europeans are scientifically illiterate the people who need agricultural science the most end up going without. The corn shipment you mention for example, it is likely that someone didn't want the local farmers to take a few seeds and grow it, so whoever was calling the shots decided to let everyone starve while claiming it was for their own good (IIRC they did accept other corn shipments provided it was ground into cornmeal first). Granted, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some local politics going on too, but I know that trade issues are probably a big part of it...heck, that's even how it is in Europe. It isn't that GE crops were found to be unsafe in Europe, it is that they know the US & Canada can out compete their farmers, so in order to enact protectionist measures without violating WTO laws, they claimed to think that the GE crops used in the US & Canada are unsafe. Hooray for the triumph of politics over science and humanitarianism.
Also, I've never heard anything linking GE crops to DNA damage (although I'm sure someone out there has claimed it). That sounds pretty unlikely. There are only a few proteins currently inserted into GE crops: cry proteins, the epsps protein, the bar enzyme, and virus coat proteins. I can't imagine how any of these could possibly damage DNA.
There's a world of difference between selective breeding and playing mix-n-match genomes hands-on via gene-splicing.
Not according to the plant cells. It's all just code to them.
But yes, they are different things, which is why we have different words for them. But they are not as different as they are made out to be. In one case you randomly mix hundreds of genes, and in the other you specifically insert one, and they're both just tools for doing the same thing..A lot of people seem to oppose genetic engineering on the basis that we're tampering with Mother Nature (or some other such nonsense) and invoke their fears of that to argue against GE crops, seemingly without realizing that the genetic changes make with conventional breeding have been much greater than those that can be made with genetic engineering.
So yeah, they are different techniques, but that really isn't relevant to the outcome, provided the genes you are inserting are safe. What is important is the product, not the process, even if it is different.
Wrong. There is no GE crop made to resist pesticides, they are made to produce an anti-insect protein that allows them to reduce the need for pesticides. There are GE crops that resist herbicides though. These herbicides are actually a lot safer than the ones they replaced, and by allowing wide spread use of no-till agriculture, for all the ill will they get, have actually been pretty good for the environment as tillage causes fertilizer runoff and promotes soil erosion...not that spraying a ton of anything is ever good mind you, just better than the alternatives.
Do you in all seriousness trust the likes of Monsanto or BASF not to put cash over lives? No matter how sound the science behind GM is, there already are enough reasons to be very mindful of what food I buy
You should be skeptical of corporate claims, but not so skeptical that you reject what the science says just because someone else has a profit motive. At that point, which is where we are now with GE crops, yes, it is pretty irrational. No one is saying you should trust Monsanto or BASF, just that all the available science indicates that GE crops are no more likely to hurt you than any other variety of crop, and I'll also note that those same companies are altering your food with other, non-GE methods as well.
GMO is not about making plants that produce more, or are resistant to cold or heat or drought.
Presently they are about resistance to insects, better weed management practices, and virus resistance, and they work.
It is the control of the food supply, that is what it is about.
You have no idea what genetic engineering is, do you? It is a technique. It doesn't want to do anything. Sure, you could say that a company wants to get larger market share, but that would be like saying that cooking is all about control because McDonald's does it.
Ask any Biologist, and they will tell you, genetically creating strains of identical plant lines to maximize a trait is a truly dangerous thing to do.
Funny, because that's exactly what many biologists working in plant science are trying to do with particular traits. That's what we've been doing for years with conventional breeding, or did you think all those plump grains and fat fruits were natural? This is not intrinsically different than altering traits via GE. And as a matter of fact, I have asked biologists about this very subject. University professors in genetics, biochemistry, plant biology, and agriculture. Guess how many of them opposed genetic engineering? None.
Whenever you take and engineer biological entities such as plants, that are gentically identical and create entire artificial eco systems that have low diversity, or in the case of GMO, _NO_ diversity, all sorts of catastrophic destruction can happen to the population.
That doesn't even make sense. Yes, lack of biodiversity is bad. Genetic engineering however is a way of improving a plant, not a system of agriculture. What you are saying is like saying that modifying cars with spinning rims means that there will only be one car on the market. Furthermore, even with GE crops, they breed the trait into numerous different lines of the crop.
Whether it be a GERM, a BUG or BAD WEATHER, having a food supply that is genetically diverse and NOT engineered is the safest and will produce the most food, consistently over a wide variety of environmental conditions.
Biodiversity is what you grow. genetic engineering is a way to improve it. That's a false dichotomy that makes absolutely no sense and could just as easily be applied to conventional breeding.
GMO has got to be the worst possible idea of all time.
Tell that to the papaya farmers in Hawaii who would no longer be papaya farmers without the GE Rainbow papaya. Tell that to the farmers in India who stole Bt cotton seeds from test fields. Tell that to the farmers all across America, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina who willingly choose to buy GE seed every year.
It isn't by accident you know, they will not put GMO labels on food. They know it is not safe, and they do not want you to know about it.
They?
GMO also is causing massive extinction rates in our grain crops from gene contamination. If this isn't stopped, there won't be any grain species left that are safe to eat.
Really? Care to explain in detail how a single new transgene could possibly do that? Because it sounds like you just made that up.
It sounds like you know nothing about biology or agriculture, but you've got conspiracies down.
How did that get modded flamebait? It's true. If anyone wants food being labeled with non-essential information, the onus is on them to demand it and pay for it, not on the government to mandate it and everyone else to subsidize it. There's plenty of other things you could know about your food, like if it was produced with tissue culture, hybridization, wide crosses, embryo rescue, somaclonal variation, mutagenesis, polyploidy, grafting, sport selection, ect. Most of the time (except in some fresh fruits, notably apples and pears) you don't even get the cultivar of the thing you're eating. People who want mandatory GE labels always talk about your 'right to know' and act as if information is being purposefully hidden, but really, this isn't any different than anything else. There's always something more you could know about any given product, but at a certain point you have to say that a minimum of information has been given and that anything beyond that should be left up to market forces. Whether something is GE or not is beyond that minimum. If you want something labeled, whatever floats your boat, but don't go around trying to force it on anyone, especially when you consider that it is fairly easy to know what is and isn't GE most of the time if you actually know much about the subject.
There's lots of independent testing confirming the safety of genetic engineering. Anyone who says otherwise either doesn't know much about the area, or is lying. Considering that Gurian-Sherman works for the Union of Concerned Scientists as an 'expert' in this field and wrote the report Failure to Yield, which claimed that GE crops yielded less than non-GE crops, while conveniently ignoring the fact that 1) those GE crops were not designed to be intrinsically higher yielding but to have other benefits, 2) there is no real reason why GE crops would have a lower yield than non-GE crops (beyond a minor fitness penalty), and 3) their data showed an increase in yield (a gain especially large in developing countries where they did not have access to pesticides to raise their yield as developed countries do), I'm going to have to assume he's just lying.
Everyone with a soft sport for some unscientific notion says the same thing. 'I'm not anti-science, its just that every scientists is either an ideologue or part of a conspiracy.' Sounds just like the anti-vaxxers or evolution denialists. Fact is, the vast majority of scientists in relevant fields support GE crops, and they make that decision based on the scientific literature out there. Accepting that is not gullibility, and ignoring that is not critical thinking. It is indeed anti-science.
The thing is no one knows for sure the effects of GM on human bodies, animal bodies, plant bodies and Evolution in general, over a long period of time.
That, by definition, is true for anything. There is always the possibility of an unknown unknown. However, that notion cannot be falsified and as such is a poor point. A better question would be if any of the genes inserted into GE crops pose known any risk. Right now, the few that are (EPSPS protein, various cry proteins, bar enzyme, CMV/PRV coat protein) do not. The moment anyone has evidence supporting the notion that there is any harm from these, or any other inserted protein (since that must be taken on a case by case basis), or the process itself (though strangely not any other plant improvement method) then maybe that notion will have merit.
Also, I notice you're not applying the same logic to any given conventionally bred trait. You could ask the same question about the Cry1Ab gene as you could the sd-1 gene, and it would make about as much sense. The comparison I like to use is lets say you decided to apply that thinking to the smallpox vaccine. Hey, it might have some long term potential but as of yet unsubscribed side effect that could hurt a lot of people, so should it have been used. Yes, because you have to consider KNOWN facts, not what-ifs that may or may not (probably the latter) actually exist.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm always a pretty critical thinker and always question the source, but based on everything I've seen and read on this topic this seems to be the real deal
Then read this. 60 farmers. Not 300,000. Think critical about this: is a movement that lies to you going to give you good information about Monsanto and genetic engineering?
Is Monsanto the best company int the world? No. Are they the great Satan they're made out to be? They're not that either. The reason you see so much hate for Monsanto is because GE crops work. They work well, farmers are neither stupid nor powerless and they buy GE seed for a reason, and they're safe. If, for some reason, you dislike genetic engineering, there's only one way to reconcile these facts with you're superstitions: conspiracy. Think about how anti-vaxxers describe Merck or Pfizer, or what creationists say about evolutionary biologists. Same thing. I'm certainly not saying you should take anything Monsanto says at face value, be skeptical about them too, but 99% of what you hear about them is, quite frankly, just bullshit by the scientifically illiterate anti-GMO crowd.
I hope not. There is only 60 farmers suing. The 300,000 number comes form the number of members in the plaintiff organizations. So, if you sign up for the Cornucopia Institute's magazine or whatever, they you're being counted as one of the farmers suing. The 300,000 farmers thing is flat out wrong. Not that anyone cares. When it comes to GMOs, people tend to turn off their brain. I suppose it is a side effect of our population moving away from the land. Agricultural misinformation tends to spread when no one even knows a farmer anymore. This is what pisses me off about the state of genetic engineering. So many people are against it, and I think it is because so many people flat out lie about them.
Let's just say I grow Red Kuri squash. I get a premium for it. Then my neighbor grows Blue Hubbard. It cross pollinates. My seed is now a hybrid, no longer the pure OP line. What if I grow seedless citrus, then my neighbor grows some citrus of another variety. they cross pollinate, now I have seeds in my citrus. Should I have the right to sue? I don't think so. Cross pollination is cross pollination, and it doesn't just apply in GE crops. What if I grow rice and have a special market for people who believe science is evil and don't want the naturally occurring sd-1 gene 'contaminating' their rice, and my modern variety growing neighbor's plants cross with mine and now sd-1 is expressed in some of my rice? Why is it that farmers have been able to deal with these problems for years, then organic growers come along and suddenly there's talk of lawsuits? Think about what being able to sue for cross pollination really means. It's absolutely absurd if you know anything about agriculture.
There is no reasonable way to separate them from those whose crops were planted by creatures or wind -- unless you actually catch the cheater in the act. It is unconscionable to let the law stand by evidence of possession alone.
It pretty easy actually. If a farmer hasn't purchased Round-Up Ready seed, but is still buying and spraying massive amounts of Round-Up, chances are something's up, and it wasn't an accident. They don't go around suing people for cross pollination; they sue when someone knowingly selected for a trait and planted in throughout their field. It's pretty easy to not get sued by them.
Actually, another company that they bought developed it. They're not lying; you're just uninformed.
I wish they would have commercialized it too. Then people wouldn't be complaining over this issue. Granted, then they'd be complaining about how farmers have to buy seed every year instead of save them Of course, that's been happening since hybrid seed became big in the 30's, but hey, who has time for meaningless things like facts?
Tainted? Contaminated? Nice use of weasel words. So, why would Monsanto want to waste time suing people who don't buy their product? What would be then end goal? That would be like a Tyson Chicken suing vegetarians. There'd be no point. Seriously, do you even think about this? When they DO sue is when someone gets cross pollinated, INTENTIONALLY selects for the gene, then grows it. It's a big difference, one that anti-GMO groupstry to avoid mentioning mentioning....cause, you know, being misleading is the best way to make a point.
Interestingly, the "pesticide-built-in" plants are already losing their effect on pests which are now becoming "super-pests."
Its not interesting at all. It happens all the time. Plants are bred with a resistance, insects overcome it, rinse and repeat. What buggers me is that no one cares if we have a problem with, say, wheat and hessian fly, but if something does the EXACT SAME THING in a GE crop, then suddenly it is news. And they're not superpests. they resistant to one form of killing them. That hardly makes them super. Bt doesn't hurt me either, but I'm no Superman.
It's amazing to me that current science fails to appreciate the power of nature to overcome our tweaking and fiddling.
Yes, that's right, science is bad and doesn't understand, the mantra of every superstitious quack on the planet. Listen, anyone who knows jack about population genetics and evolution saw this coming. It was the management practices that created overly strong selection pressure. Don't blame the corn because farmers liked the GE varieties too much to plant refuge areas.
It's not necessarily only about whether it is "safe for human consumption."
It isn't about that at all. here is a complete list of all available evidence suggesting GE crops are dangerous:
There are other considerations that make GM foods like these a BAD IDEA.
Pretty wide brush there. Given that your previous considerations applied to every other crop as well, I'm guessing you don't actually have any other considerations that mean much.
This summary is absolute bullshit. There's only 60 farmers in the lawsuit! The rest of the people are members of the plaintiff organizations! That 300,000 number is a flat out lie. What is wrong with doing a little fact checking?
Good call. You're right. If you actually look into this thing, you'll see that the lawsuit represents only 60 farmers . It is the organizations that have over 300,000 members. So, to make it look like farmers really hate GMOs (guess what, they don't, ask one sometime), they count every member as a farmer. There's less than a million farmers in the US. Basically, this is just the anti-GMO people being lying assholes on par with anti-vaxxers and evolution deniers, and unfortunately, most people know jack about agriculture they think that numbers like that are actually realistic. Yep, 1/3 farmers hate Monsanto, yet over 90% of some crops are their GE seed. How did this nonsense get called news?
That's because they're hybrids, which has absolutely nothing do do with being GE.
First, 2,4-D is already commonly used for weed control.
Second, you're thinking of the corn engineered to resist it that may soon be on the market, not the chemical itself.
Third, that was Dow, not Monsanto.
Fourth, 2,4-D was an ingredient in Agent Orange. So was water, but no one complains that Pepsi has Agent Orange ingredients in it.. Neither was the source of the problems it is famous for.
Fifth, herbicides don't contribute to resistant insects. You're confusing two entirely separate issues.
Sixth, I love what passes for interesting about agriculture nowadays.
I thought the claimed reduction in use of pesticides with GM crops was widely questioned
Well, it is widely questioned, just not by anyone who actually knows what they're talking about. There's plenty of info on the subject, and strangely the only ones disputing that are either some organic woo-mongering organization or outright quacks, and usually their evidence is pretty flimsy. They claim that GE crops, with an anti-insect protein, require higher pesticide usage? Even if the GE protein was totally ineffective (which is false) how the heck does the addition of that extra protein make the crops need more pesticides? That doesn't even make sense. Well, not scientifically, but if you think genetic engineering is some magical black box with crazy Hollywood effects, then it must be perfectly rational. GE crops have actually reduced pesticides so much in some places that non-target insects (that is to say, non-lepidopterans, as only they are effected by the currently used pest resistance trait) that were once controlled by broad-spectrum pesticides have for the first time become pests. The claim that GE crops increase pesticide use, sorry, absolute bullshit.
Now, two points of clarity, first, they have promoted an increase in use of certain herbicides. The Round-Up Ready ones, obviously, go hand in hand with an increase in Round-Up, and Liberty Link with Liberty. This sounds like a pretty good argument against them, until you consider that they do this at the benefit of replacing other, more environmentally harmful herbicides (as well as promoting no-till practices). Yes, spraying herbicides is bad, but this isn't a case of choice 1 vs the ideal, it is realistic choice 1 vs realistic choice 2, and for better or worse, the herbicide resistant ones, for all the ill will they get, come out on top. The other caveat is that, yes, some insects have developed resistance to the insect resistant GE trait. Ironically, anti-GE groups are quick to point this out, but (since they know bugger all about population genetics) don't understand that this is evidence that the GE trait is working. You don't create population shifts without selection pressure, and you don't get selection pressure by not working. If this resistance becomes widespread, the GE plants still will not need more pesticides, but they will lose the advantages they provide, which would be bad. It should be noted that this is not the fault of the plants themselves, rather, management practices, and over-reliance on a single trait, and also, that such instances are not unique to GE crops. Selection pressure is selection pressure and evolution doesn't care where it came from. Problems of resistance have happened before, and will happen again, GE or not.
The notion that people are against GE crops for patent reasons is a good one, but considering how how many plants are patented that go unprotested, it cannot be entirely true, though I'm sure it plays a role for those who know bugger all about plant breeding (which accurately describes most people who oppose GE crops). Lots of plants are under patent, and I don't see anyone complaining about them. when the Honeycrisp apple or Flavor Grenade Pluot came out, no one cared that they were patented (Honeycrisp's has since expired btw, and the royalties the breeders received from it went on to create my personal favorite apple variety, Snow Sweet, which is also patented). When the USDA announced the HoneySweet plum, or when Okanagan Specialty Fruits announced the Arctic apple, people did, and when they're released, you can bet there'll be backlash. Why, when they were pretty much the same things, and both under patent (though the HoneySweet might be free to prop
I can't help but thing of when there were demands for removing the prohibition of cannabis brought up on the site. The official response wasn't anything of honestly leveling with the people so much as basically telling everyone that they didn't care what we think and everyone should just piss off, with a heaping helping of vacuous crap. I highly doubt this will be any different. Sure they'll respond, but odds are it will be with some hollow & meaningless response, and in the end no action will be taken.
That's an interesting take on it, but what I'm saying would be more akin to saying 'Urea produced in your body is the same as artificially produced urea from a flask.' Very different process yes, but if you're evaluating the urea, that does not matter. Granted, you're not producing the exact same things here, but you should still focus stronger on the end result than how you got there.
But still there's a chance of diseases an parasites missed or adapting to the modified organisms.
More than just a chance; it's already happened. However, this really isn't a point against genetic engineering as many would think. This can, and has, happened before. Weeds have developed resistances to herbicides and pests have overcome plant resistances. When you apply selection pressure to a system, you will create a genetic shift, and population genetics doesn't care how that selection pressure was created. Look at wheat and hessian flies for example. No genetic engineering involved, but you still get resistances. This is a bit more complected than it is made out to be by the people making cries of 'superweeds.'
I don't think it's all about genetic engineering in general, but how it can be used (and misused) by profit seeking corporations.
I'm sure that anti-corporate sentiment is a part of it, but not the whole thing. Most of the opposition to GE crops includes opposition to non-corporate GE crops. There's tons of opposition to Golden Rice for example. There's opposition to the Rainbow papaya, produced by the University of Hawaii. Some have already come out in opposition of the HoneySweet plum, produced by the USDA. In Australia, low GI wheat being developed by CSIRO was destroyed by Greenpeace thugs, and in Europe, potatoes being developed by the University of Ghent, grapes funded by the French government, and others have been destroyed too. Even those from small companies, like the Arctic apples and AqquaAdvantage salmon are getting opposed. I'm not disagreeing with the anti-corporate angle, but that is not the only part of it if people are opposing non-corporate GE crops too.
According to my sources (various newspapers) the reality looks a bit different: The Indian farmers experienced a crop shortfalls due a fungus. The ones that stole Bt cotton most likely expected a wonder like the ones who purchased it because the advertisements from Monsanto promised exactly that wonder.
I'm not really sure to what degree Monsanto has advertised in India, and I really can't give any generalities on the general situation. I know that there are some farmers who have had great success with those seeds, while others have had problems like drought, or economic issues (there are some government policies in some Indian states that are pretty nasty for the farmers). Don't mistake me for trying to defend Monsanto, I just support the use of the technology, which I have no reason to think did not do its job in any of those cases. A new hybrid from parent plants not adapted to the local environment could, for example, contribute to a failed yield (even though not taking that into consideration is pretty sub-standard since they usually do consider that), I suppose, but this is hybridization, not genetic engineering.
I'm sure many farmers are still willing to buy GE seed, as they expect more yield. But many of the farmers have no other chances: In the USA and possibly in other countries too it's nearly impossible to get unmodified seed for corn. And if you get unmodified seed you'll face the risk of contamination with GE seed and be sued for unauthorized use of GE seed. Or you can't simply find a seed washer because most of them got sued.
I've never actually looked, but I would be surprised if that were the case. Keep in mind that, when growing Bt crops, you need to plant a certain area of refuge area crops (crops without the trait) to prevent pests from developing resistances. So, there's still plenty out there for people who want it. With the lawsuits, for many growers that doesn't normally apply. If you're growing hybrid seed, you won't be saving it anyway (long story short, hybrid seed is unstable beyond the second generation). I coul
I do happen to know a bit about the stuff Jeffrey Smith says. He's pretty famous for being one of the top anti-GE campaigners out there, and I recognize a few of the things he cites. Although he gets plenty of publicity, he doesn't exactly have the best reputation for honesty and scientific integrity.
First, neither Surov study nor the Ermakova study he cites (and derives many of his claims from) were ever actually published. From what information they have released, it seems that Surov as I recall only used five hamsters, and he used some weird variety with strange dietary requirements that no one uses for feeding trials, and the Ermakova study had rats dying, even in the control group, at way higher rates than they should have. I can't remember all the details without looking it up, but those studies don't mean much. The Austrian study he cites was actually withdrawn for its flaws, but that doesn't stop Smith from citing that too (and naturally leaving out the bit about its withdrawal).
And he mentions an anecdote about livestock eating GE feed and becoming sterile. If he's talking about the same instance I'm thinking of, this one actually happened. They fed livestock GE feed and they went sterile. That sounds pretty bad, but again, Smith conveniently leaves out that this feed was infected with a mold that produces sterility inducing mycotoxins, and that this while not frequent is not an unheard of occurrence in livestock, and it can happen regardless of whether the corn is GE or not. The thing that he seems to be citing claiming DNA damage, after a quick lookover, doesn't appear to actually say anything of the sort.
So, yeah, that's the best he's got. Not very impressive, and unfortunately, he's one of the biggest names in the anti-GE movement, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen claims of harm from GE crops go straight back to something he wrote. He is very fond of cherrypicking and half truths mixed up in alarmist rhetoric, and makes no mention of any of the studies showing no harm from GE crops. If you're interested, a professor from the University of Melbourne has a pretty comprehensive takedown of one of his books, and this video goes over some more of his claims. I'm not usually in the habit of linking to YouTube since they're usually pretty poor but this one actually has clips of what Smith says about something, then shows the study itself saying the exact opposite, which I find funny, and it has lots of good citations if you ever want to look them over or read a long boring FDA report.
So that claim, and the rest, aren't something I'd be all that concerned about.
Kind of. With cross pollination, that happens. Every plant does it. The only difference is that now people care. That's more of a people issue than a plant one. I really don't much see how it is too big of an issue myself, because if you're growing hybrid seed you're probably going to buy new seed next year, and if you're growing OP seed then you aren't going to want any cross pollinated seed anyway.
As for escape into the wild and other environmental concerns, this is potentially problematic, however, it is equally probable that conventional breeding could have similar issues, and it really depends on where you are too, and what crop. Most crops really aren't that weedy and aren't going to overrun an ecosystem (canola seems to do pretty well though, but herbicide tolerance isn't going to give it much of an advantage in the wild over non-GE escaped canola, which is a man made crop to begin with), and they're only going to cross with wild plants if they're being grown where the crop originates. For example, GE corn in Germany isn't going anywhere, end of story. You also have to weigh the benefits against the risks. GE crops have been good for the environment, and while they may cause harm, you have to balance those two, not consider only one. And so far, none of the ecological disasters that anti-GE folks said would happen have materialized.
So, even if we consider the environment, GE crops are pretty safe.
In many parts of Africa, it isn't so much fear of the crops themselves (although I'm sure there is some of that too, especially among wealthy Africans) as it is fear of losing their export market to Europe. Some African countries really need that market, so because Europe rejects GE crops, then in order to prevent their ability to export to Europe secure, those countries ban GE crops as well. This basically means that because Europeans are scientifically illiterate the people who need agricultural science the most end up going without. The corn shipment you mention for example, it is likely that someone didn't want the local farmers to take a few seeds and grow it, so whoever was calling the shots decided to let everyone starve while claiming it was for their own good (IIRC they did accept other corn shipments provided it was ground into cornmeal first). Granted, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some local politics going on too, but I know that trade issues are probably a big part of it...heck, that's even how it is in Europe. It isn't that GE crops were found to be unsafe in Europe, it is that they know the US & Canada can out compete their farmers, so in order to enact protectionist measures without violating WTO laws, they claimed to think that the GE crops used in the US & Canada are unsafe. Hooray for the triumph of politics over science and humanitarianism.
Also, I've never heard anything linking GE crops to DNA damage (although I'm sure someone out there has claimed it). That sounds pretty unlikely. There are only a few proteins currently inserted into GE crops: cry proteins, the epsps protein, the bar enzyme, and virus coat proteins. I can't imagine how any of these could possibly damage DNA.
There's a world of difference between selective breeding and playing mix-n-match genomes hands-on via gene-splicing.
Not according to the plant cells. It's all just code to them.
But yes, they are different things, which is why we have different words for them. But they are not as different as they are made out to be. In one case you randomly mix hundreds of genes, and in the other you specifically insert one, and they're both just tools for doing the same thing. .A lot of people seem to oppose genetic engineering on the basis that we're tampering with Mother Nature (or some other such nonsense) and invoke their fears of that to argue against GE crops, seemingly without realizing that the genetic changes make with conventional breeding have been much greater than those that can be made with genetic engineering.
So yeah, they are different techniques, but that really isn't relevant to the outcome, provided the genes you are inserting are safe. What is important is the product, not the process, even if it is different.
Wrong. There is no GE crop made to resist pesticides, they are made to produce an anti-insect protein that allows them to reduce the need for pesticides. There are GE crops that resist herbicides though. These herbicides are actually a lot safer than the ones they replaced, and by allowing wide spread use of no-till agriculture, for all the ill will they get, have actually been pretty good for the environment as tillage causes fertilizer runoff and promotes soil erosion...not that spraying a ton of anything is ever good mind you, just better than the alternatives.
Do you in all seriousness trust the likes of Monsanto or BASF not to put cash over lives? No matter how sound the science behind GM is, there already are enough reasons to be very mindful of what food I buy
You should be skeptical of corporate claims, but not so skeptical that you reject what the science says just because someone else has a profit motive. At that point, which is where we are now with GE crops, yes, it is pretty irrational. No one is saying you should trust Monsanto or BASF, just that all the available science indicates that GE crops are no more likely to hurt you than any other variety of crop, and I'll also note that those same companies are altering your food with other, non-GE methods as well.
GMO is not about making plants that produce more, or are resistant to cold or heat or drought.
Presently they are about resistance to insects, better weed management practices, and virus resistance, and they work.
It is the control of the food supply, that is what it is about.
You have no idea what genetic engineering is, do you? It is a technique. It doesn't want to do anything. Sure, you could say that a company wants to get larger market share, but that would be like saying that cooking is all about control because McDonald's does it.
Ask any Biologist, and they will tell you, genetically creating strains of identical plant lines to maximize a trait is a truly dangerous thing to do.
Funny, because that's exactly what many biologists working in plant science are trying to do with particular traits. That's what we've been doing for years with conventional breeding, or did you think all those plump grains and fat fruits were natural? This is not intrinsically different than altering traits via GE. And as a matter of fact, I have asked biologists about this very subject. University professors in genetics, biochemistry, plant biology, and agriculture. Guess how many of them opposed genetic engineering? None.
Whenever you take and engineer biological entities such as plants, that are gentically identical and create entire artificial eco systems that have low diversity, or in the case of GMO, _NO_ diversity, all sorts of catastrophic destruction can happen to the population.
That doesn't even make sense. Yes, lack of biodiversity is bad. Genetic engineering however is a way of improving a plant, not a system of agriculture. What you are saying is like saying that modifying cars with spinning rims means that there will only be one car on the market. Furthermore, even with GE crops, they breed the trait into numerous different lines of the crop.
Whether it be a GERM, a BUG or BAD WEATHER, having a food supply that is genetically diverse and NOT engineered is the safest and will produce the most food, consistently over a wide variety of environmental conditions.
Biodiversity is what you grow. genetic engineering is a way to improve it. That's a false dichotomy that makes absolutely no sense and could just as easily be applied to conventional breeding.
GMO has got to be the worst possible idea of all time.
Tell that to the papaya farmers in Hawaii who would no longer be papaya farmers without the GE Rainbow papaya. Tell that to the farmers in India who stole Bt cotton seeds from test fields. Tell that to the farmers all across America, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina who willingly choose to buy GE seed every year.
It isn't by accident you know, they will not put GMO labels on food. They know it is not safe, and they do not want you to know about it.
They?
GMO also is causing massive extinction rates in our grain crops from gene contamination. If this isn't stopped, there won't be any grain species left that are safe to eat.
Really? Care to explain in detail how a single new transgene could possibly do that? Because it sounds like you just made that up.
It sounds like you know nothing about biology or agriculture, but you've got conspiracies down.
How did that get modded flamebait? It's true. If anyone wants food being labeled with non-essential information, the onus is on them to demand it and pay for it, not on the government to mandate it and everyone else to subsidize it. There's plenty of other things you could know about your food, like if it was produced with tissue culture, hybridization, wide crosses, embryo rescue, somaclonal variation, mutagenesis, polyploidy, grafting, sport selection, ect. Most of the time (except in some fresh fruits, notably apples and pears) you don't even get the cultivar of the thing you're eating. People who want mandatory GE labels always talk about your 'right to know' and act as if information is being purposefully hidden, but really, this isn't any different than anything else. There's always something more you could know about any given product, but at a certain point you have to say that a minimum of information has been given and that anything beyond that should be left up to market forces. Whether something is GE or not is beyond that minimum. If you want something labeled, whatever floats your boat, but don't go around trying to force it on anyone, especially when you consider that it is fairly easy to know what is and isn't GE most of the time if you actually know much about the subject.
There's lots of independent testing confirming the safety of genetic engineering. Anyone who says otherwise either doesn't know much about the area, or is lying. Considering that Gurian-Sherman works for the Union of Concerned Scientists as an 'expert' in this field and wrote the report Failure to Yield, which claimed that GE crops yielded less than non-GE crops, while conveniently ignoring the fact that 1) those GE crops were not designed to be intrinsically higher yielding but to have other benefits, 2) there is no real reason why GE crops would have a lower yield than non-GE crops (beyond a minor fitness penalty), and 3) their data showed an increase in yield (a gain especially large in developing countries where they did not have access to pesticides to raise their yield as developed countries do), I'm going to have to assume he's just lying.
Everyone with a soft sport for some unscientific notion says the same thing. 'I'm not anti-science, its just that every scientists is either an ideologue or part of a conspiracy.' Sounds just like the anti-vaxxers or evolution denialists. Fact is, the vast majority of scientists in relevant fields support GE crops, and they make that decision based on the scientific literature out there. Accepting that is not gullibility, and ignoring that is not critical thinking. It is indeed anti-science.
The thing is no one knows for sure the effects of GM on human bodies, animal bodies, plant bodies and Evolution in general, over a long period of time.
That, by definition, is true for anything. There is always the possibility of an unknown unknown. However, that notion cannot be falsified and as such is a poor point. A better question would be if any of the genes inserted into GE crops pose known any risk. Right now, the few that are (EPSPS protein, various cry proteins, bar enzyme, CMV/PRV coat protein) do not. The moment anyone has evidence supporting the notion that there is any harm from these, or any other inserted protein (since that must be taken on a case by case basis), or the process itself (though strangely not any other plant improvement method) then maybe that notion will have merit.
Also, I notice you're not applying the same logic to any given conventionally bred trait. You could ask the same question about the Cry1Ab gene as you could the sd-1 gene, and it would make about as much sense. The comparison I like to use is lets say you decided to apply that thinking to the smallpox vaccine. Hey, it might have some long term potential but as of yet unsubscribed side effect that could hurt a lot of people, so should it have been used. Yes, because you have to consider KNOWN facts, not what-ifs that may or may not (probably the latter) actually exist.