i for one am fully against leaving research like this in the hands of private investors and their companies, such as monsanto, as i stated before. i do believe that this is an area which has the potential to hold benefits, if approached and treated properly. hence research should be conducted into it, and by some organisation not concerned about its own profits!
Land-grant universities, such as the University of Illinoi, have very active research programs in the area of agriculture biotechnology. One interesting bit of information, though, is where large portions of the funding come from. Yup. Private industry leaders such as Monsanto, Novartis, DuPont, ect. There is no where else to get the funding needed. One can only hope that professors aren't motivated soley by who's signing their grant check this month...
We are producing enough grain and meat RIGHT NOW to feed everyone in the world. We will continue to do so for many years. The problem is, as always, in the distribution. Politics, more than anything, is causing and prolonging world hunger.
You cannot reuse hybrid corn seed. Hybrid corn is just that, a hybrid. Go back to basic genetics, here...R=dominant r=recessive. Hybrid corn is Rr. It must be Rr to have the traits that you want in it. Seed from hybrid Rr corn can be RR, Rr, or rr. It will not breed true, and thus is essentially useless.
Soybean varieties are a different matter, however. My family has (legally!) saved soybeen seeds for the next year's planting many times. However, it's sort of a dice roll as to the germination. Better off buying new seed that has a guanteed germination percentage, usually.
A bit of background on myself, first. I graduated this past year from the University of Illinois with a degree in Agronomy. I'm currently working for a large ag cooperative, selling agricultural inputs (seed, chemicals, fertilizer) to farmers. Dealing with agriculture biotechnology is part of my everyday life.
Some fact tidbits: Over half the US soybean crop last year was Roundup Ready soybeans. This is probably going to stay steady, or maybe even increase this coming year. Roundup is an amazing product for farmers. It saves money, time, and is much safer than a lot of conventional chemical programs. The chances are that those McDonalds french fries you ate yesterday were cooked in oil from Roundup Ready soybeans. It's here to stay. Whether these beans are safe over the long run for human consumption is not something I, or anyone else can say with any certainty, though. Certainly, I have no current qualms about eating them. But then, I drive on Chicago freeways, too...
Terminator technology: One of the stupidest things ever thought of. I can tell you right now for a fact that there are no commercially available seeds that use this technology. Farmers are not currently planting it. I don't believe you will ever see farmers plant it. As I understand it, the 'terminator' part of the seed has to be activated by spraying a certain chemical at a certain time on the field, and that's money farmers aren't going to want to throw away. This one's a definite no-go.
Bt: In my area, the Bt gene is used in corn as a preventative against European corn borer. Farmers have had decent results in some years, depending on the borer population, which will vary from year to year. I, personally, am seriously worried about the resistance issue. Farmers look at Bt and say 'Why plant anything else, if this works so good?' Five to ten years, and we're going to see serious resistance in the borer population to Bt. Maybe sooner. Bt acreage for the next year is probably going to stay steady, or maybe even drop a little, due to farmers' concern about the European market not accepting Bt corn.
Biotech isn't going to go away because a bunch of people think it's bad. Too many corporations have put too much money into it. Whether agriculture can weather this storm and come out in front is something I worry about. I'd like you all to remember, though...farmers do care. We don't work our asses off trying to feed the rest of you just for the money. 'Cause there certainly isn't much of it for us...
Well, the Mac version has a way to go still.
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Mozilla M4 is Out
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· Score: 1
iCab is nice, but my largest problem with it at the moment is the lack of stylesheet support. As I've shifted to doing most of my pages using simple stylesheets, this just won't work for me...
Caution warranted but side effects unlikely
on
Gene Leakage
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· Score: 1
In the United States, farmers are in fact required to plant 10% (I may be off on the exact number) regular crops with their GM crops so that they prevent the scenario I just outlined from happening. Thus the few resistant insects breed with the non-resistant insects and keep the resistant genes relatively diluted.
This is known as a refuge, and is used when planting crops that have the Bt toxin gene (The Bt toxin is lethal to lepidopteran insects). There are several different Bt technologies currently on the market...the initial technologies were registered with a 5%-10% refuge requirement, which means that at least that much acreage must be planted to non-Bt crops. And the non-Bt crops should be planted close to the Bt crops, so that resistant and non resistant insects can interbreed, and prevent the passing of resistance to the next generation. There's been a lot of controversy about how big refugia should be--the EPA has registered new technology with a 20%-40% refuge requirement, although the older technologies are remaining at the lower level.
Of course, this is only a resistance management strategy. It is inevitable that resistance will occur...this is just putting it off for a while.
Sorry....I just finished a term paper on this exact subject. Kinda neat to see something in/. that I can actually comment on intelligently.
I'm currently an agronomy major in college (who graduates in a month!), and I was raised on a dairy/cash grain farm. I'm just a geek in my spare time.:)
(North) American foreign policy
on
Gene Leakage
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· Score: 1
There already exsists a system in which you must buy seed from the 'evil seed corporations' each year. It's called hybrid corn (and wheat, and a few other crops). Hybrid corn is heterozygous, which means it doesn't breed true. If you want to plant the same hybrid a second year, you must go back and buy new seed from the company. Hybrid corn confers a large advantage over what we used to plant; you don't see any corn planted that isn't hybridized anymore. Even in the Third World, hybrid corn provides such a huge yield advantage over normal lines that it is being widely adopted.
Now, I don't think Terminator technology is quite the revolution that hybrid corn was. But there are similarities to the situation I described above. Also, your hype about 'GMs as US political tools' is all a lot of BS. Novartis, for example, is a SWISS company, and they are just as leading edge with GMs as Monsanto is.
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i for one am fully against leaving research like this in the hands of private investors and their companies, such as monsanto, as i stated before. i do believe that this is an area which has the potential to hold benefits, if approached and treated properly. hence research should be conducted into it, and by some organisation not concerned about its own profits!
Land-grant universities, such as the University of Illinoi, have very active research programs in the area of agriculture biotechnology. One interesting bit of information, though, is where large portions of the funding come from. Yup. Private industry leaders such as Monsanto, Novartis, DuPont, ect. There is no where else to get the funding needed. One can only hope that professors aren't motivated soley by who's signing their grant check this month...
We are producing enough grain and meat RIGHT NOW to feed everyone in the world. We will continue to do so for many years. The problem is, as always, in the distribution. Politics, more than anything, is causing and prolonging world hunger.
You cannot reuse hybrid corn seed. Hybrid corn is just that, a hybrid. Go back to basic genetics, here...R=dominant r=recessive. Hybrid corn is Rr. It must be Rr to have the traits that you want in it. Seed from hybrid Rr corn can be RR, Rr, or rr. It will not breed true, and thus is essentially useless.
;)
Soybean varieties are a different matter, however. My family has (legally!) saved soybeen seeds for the next year's planting many times. However, it's sort of a dice roll as to the germination. Better off buying new seed that has a guanteed germination percentage, usually.
Hopefully, this made some sense to some of you.
Hopefully, this won't get buried in the spam.
A bit of background on myself, first. I graduated this past year from the University of Illinois with a degree in Agronomy. I'm currently working for a large ag cooperative, selling agricultural inputs (seed, chemicals, fertilizer) to farmers. Dealing with agriculture biotechnology is part of my everyday life.
Some fact tidbits: Over half the US soybean crop last year was Roundup Ready soybeans. This is probably going to stay steady, or maybe even increase this coming year. Roundup is an amazing product for farmers. It saves money, time, and is much safer than a lot of conventional chemical programs. The chances are that those McDonalds french fries you ate yesterday were cooked in oil from Roundup Ready soybeans. It's here to stay. Whether these beans are safe over the long run for human consumption is not something I, or anyone else can say with any certainty, though. Certainly, I have no current qualms about eating them. But then, I drive on Chicago freeways, too...
Terminator technology: One of the stupidest things ever thought of. I can tell you right now for a fact that there are no commercially available seeds that use this technology. Farmers are not currently planting it. I don't believe you will ever see farmers plant it. As I understand it, the 'terminator' part of the seed has to be activated by spraying a certain chemical at a certain time on the field, and that's money farmers aren't going to want to throw away. This one's a definite no-go.
Bt: In my area, the Bt gene is used in corn as a preventative against European corn borer. Farmers have had decent results in some years, depending on the borer population, which will vary from year to year. I, personally, am seriously worried about the resistance issue. Farmers look at Bt and say 'Why plant anything else, if this works so good?' Five to ten years, and we're going to see serious resistance in the borer population to Bt. Maybe sooner. Bt acreage for the next year is probably going to stay steady, or maybe even drop a little, due to farmers' concern about the European market not accepting Bt corn.
Biotech isn't going to go away because a bunch of people think it's bad. Too many corporations have put too much money into it. Whether agriculture can weather this storm and come out in front is something I worry about. I'd like you all to remember, though...farmers do care. We don't work our asses off trying to feed the rest of you just for the money. 'Cause there certainly isn't much of it for us...
iCab is nice, but my largest problem with it at the moment is the lack of stylesheet support. As I've shifted to doing most of my pages using simple stylesheets, this just won't work for me...
In the United States, farmers are in fact required to plant 10% (I may be off on the exact number) regular crops with their GM crops so that they prevent the scenario I just outlined from happening. Thus the few resistant insects breed with the non-resistant insects and keep the resistant genes relatively diluted.
This is known as a refuge, and is used when planting crops that have the Bt toxin gene (The Bt toxin is lethal to lepidopteran insects). There are several different Bt technologies currently on the market...the initial technologies were registered with a 5%-10% refuge requirement, which means that at least that much acreage must be planted to non-Bt crops. And the non-Bt crops should be planted close to the Bt crops, so that resistant and non resistant insects can interbreed, and prevent the passing of resistance to the next generation. There's been a lot of controversy about how big refugia should be--the EPA has registered new technology with a 20%-40% refuge requirement, although the older technologies are remaining at the lower level.
Of course, this is only a resistance management strategy. It is inevitable that resistance will occur...this is just putting it off for a while.
Sorry....I just finished a term paper on this exact subject. Kinda neat to see something in /. that I can actually comment on intelligently.
I'm currently an agronomy major in college (who graduates in a month!), and I was raised on a dairy/cash grain farm. I'm just a geek in my spare time. :)
There already exsists a system in which you must buy seed from the 'evil seed corporations' each year. It's called hybrid corn (and wheat, and a few other crops). Hybrid corn is heterozygous, which means it doesn't breed true. If you want to plant the same hybrid a second year, you must go back and buy new seed from the company. Hybrid corn confers a large advantage over what we used to plant; you don't see any corn planted that isn't hybridized anymore. Even in the Third World, hybrid corn provides such a huge yield advantage over normal lines that it is being widely adopted.
Now, I don't think Terminator technology is quite the revolution that hybrid corn was. But there are similarities to the situation I described above. Also, your hype about 'GMs as US political tools' is all a lot of BS. Novartis, for example, is a SWISS company, and they are just as leading edge with GMs as Monsanto is.
As clients for 'other OSs' haven't been publically released yet, point A is mostly moot. ;P